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Walker H. Jordan 




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With "Old Eph" In The Army 

(Not a History) 

A Simple Treatise on the Human Side of 
The Colored Soldier. 



-By- 
WALKER H. JORDAN. 



H. E. HOUCK a CO. 
BALTIMORE. MO. 



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COPYRIGHT by 
Walker H. Jordan. 

All Rights Reserved. 



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©CI.A530 660 






CONTENTS. 



Page 

Foreword _________ n 

Chapter I iVIisinterpretation and Application of Racial Traits - - 13 

II Pre- War Temperament — The Voyage — "A Sub! A Sub!" 18 

III Lathus, — Social Equality, — Loneliness, — Mail, — Prejudice 21 

IV La Courtine, — Artillery Training - - — - 26 
V A Psychological Up-heaval - - - - - 31 

VI Frouard, — An Air Raid ----- 34 

VII The Psychology of the Firing Line - - - - 36 

VIII Fighting Caliber, — Battle Zone, — Runners, — Telephone 
Men, — ^The Valley of the Shadow, — A Shooting 
Match -------39 

IX The Colored Officer - - - - - - 44 

X The Armistice, — After-War Conclusions, — Reconstruction 47 

Epilogue ----------55 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
The Author ...---.- face 11 

Regimental calibre _...--- 28 

War Souvenirs -------- 43 



(Ua ti^oBt mt|Q0P b^atii i^Apth 

to gitjp Amerira a ttpm 

Strtli of 3ff«p5nttt. tl|e 

allg lipalt. 



They fell asleep in Flanders Fields; 

Their eyes are closed forever. 

But still the light shines more bravely on — 

A beacon to us given. 

Our's is the fight they bravely led; 

Our's their battle cry; our's to follow Liberty's light; 

Our's to do or die. 

Beside your tomb Humanity shall yet 

In reverence kneel; 

Posterity shall chant the theme of your 

Eternal fame. 

PoHshed brass nor marble grand may build 

No monument. 

But Freedmen singing where slaves oft moaned — 

Now unchained by shackled hands, 

Shall tell to all the race of men 

Your love for a fellow man! 

W. H. J. 




THE AUTHOR WITH LOVING CUP PRESENTED TO HIM 
BY HEADQUARTERS COMPANY 351st FIELD ARTILLERY 



FOREWORD. 

In submitting this little booklet to the Public a very earnest hope is enter- 
tained that it will in some slight degree operate as a corrective to the all too 
prevalent tendency on the part of some at attempt to burlesque the Negro 
Soldier into a forced accident, and to account for his exploits along lines other 
than those which are universally granted to be the compelling powers in other 
men. 

As it is generally believed that in the necessarily broad scope of the His- 
torian, with his methodical search for statistics and stereotyped formula for 
objectives and achievements, much of the charm of the intimate and personal 
is obscured, a further hope is voiced that this little booklet will endear itself 
to the Public because of it's efforts to illumine the human side of the Colored 
Fighter. 

Stress laid upon "Morale and Temperament" is justified because these things 
are the Army, — not bullets and bayonets and gas and swords, but rather the 
spirit of the men who weild these things. Tell the morale and temperament of 
troops and their achievements are already prophesied. Feet may carry men 
into battle; hands may hold the rifle but it is the heart which drives home the 
bayonet. 

Whatever conclusions reached are the product of many combined impres- 
sions reflected by the Colored Fighter during the varied stages of training and 
in actual combat, and suggested by the broader vision and more thorough appre- 
ciation of human rights which have come to him from the shell-torn battle fields 
of France. 

The Author. 



CHAPTER ONE 



MISINTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION 
OF RACIAL TRAITS 

Perhaps in no other way, save through the red channel of War, could the 
eternally jocular spirit of the Negro youth, and of the Race as a whole," be so 
successfully mirrored up to the World's great gaze and admiration. So much 
has been said to burlesque the Colored youth and to paint in weird and grotesque 
figures his appearance, attitude and expressions in the war, that to the casual 
observer he is shunted into one of Longfellow's "Dumb, driven cattle," and 
not the hero of purpose which at heart he really is. There is altogether too preva- 
ent an idea that the Negro was in the War simply because he could not do 
otherwise, — that the idea of service to God, Country, Race and Humanity 
entered not into the compelling powers which if they did not alone enlist his 
sympathies, did at least render the task less irksome and the nobility of purpose 
more definitely fixed in his mind. 

Who does not dread war? Who, save the Hun, could be so utterly base that 
he will not seek any honorable end to avoid the horrors of bloodshed and death? 
America, herself, affords the world the most brilliant of all examples of the 
longsuffering gentleman, but who, when finally concluding that the quarrel is 
forced upon him, lends himself to the task with every ounce of strength of brawn 
and bone, of heart and of soul. The spirit of the Negro youth differs only in 
the quantity, — not in the quality. Truly, in the technique, the fight was not 
his, nor yet his a fair voice in the Government which willed the fight, and subse- 
quent events have proven that no Race stood to gain less than his; yet when the 
call came, in spite of alien propaganda with it's undeniable truths of Disfran- 
chisements, Segregation and Jimcrowisms even in the Army and Navy, he stepped 
to the great altar of American pride and laid thereon his all. The sure knowledge 
that he gave freely, — without stint and without question — has been the balm 
of many an aching heart when the silver service star turned to gold in the cabin 
window. 

It is believed that Headquarters Company 351st Field Artillery, (Camp 
Meade, Md.) creditably reflects the morale and temperament of the average 
colored unit enlisted. That Company was most heterogeneously composed, 
incorporating men from North and South, East and West, and ranging in it's 
educational scope from the occasional illiterate to men fresh from the walls of 
Brown, Howard and Union Universities and the Philadelphia Academy of Fine 
Arts, and any number of Normal, Business and High School graduates. From 
Washington (D. C), alone almost a dozen graduates from Business and High 
Schools volunteered to this one Company. Almost the entire Regimental 
Non-commissioned staff was made up of colored youths who had volunteered 
into the service; among such men from Washington were conspicuously: Bat- 
talion Sergeants Major Joseph Settlers, John R. Fearing and Weaver A. Wood; 
Sergeants John H. White and John R. Williams, and Privates Charles M. Gor- 
don, Claudius Ramsey, Howard E. Early and many others. From Pittsburgh 
and the far west came scores of college and school men specially inducted at 
their own request through the medium of Lieutenant Harry K. Tootle and Ser- 
geant John L. Clark. 

13 



14 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

It cannot be that these men did not know of existing conditions as regard 
Races here; it is not to be thought that their ears were spared the ringing of the 
omnipresent cry: "What has the Negro to fight for?" or that there was any 
doubt in their minds as to treatment expected, but Humanity — bigger than self. 
Race or Country — called and the Negro youth was too big not to be big enough. 

Not as the cudgeled or scourged went he, but as one proud of his privilege 
to fight in the cause of Right and upborne by unfailing faith that 'twere the call 
of Duty and not the whip of man which sent him forth. Such men could not help 
but be brave and true and loyal; could not help restraining any hot retort which 
aggravating circumstances may have prompted. Their's was the conviction 
that their presence (certainly their early presence there) in Camp was the working 
of their own volition and this conviction was carried home to the hearts of others 
so much so that instead of they, themselves, feeling ashamed to admit volun- 
teering, other drafted men schemed to prove that they were not drafted. 

A Regiment is good or bad; happy or sullen according to the temper of it's 
noncommissioned officers. Officers cannot make a Regiment. They may 
discipline it, but they cannot make or mar it's spirit or morale. As are the 
noncommissioned officers so is the Regiment. And there was no happier, snap- 
pier Regiment than the 351st Field Artillery and few Companies as good as 
"Old Headquarters." (It is only fair to state here that in the early days of 
Headquarters Company, Pittsburgh (Pa.), furnished the majority of the non- 
commissioned officers. These were men who had been drafted and sent to Camp 
Lee (Va.). They were school men and knew their worth and their adaptability 
to become proficient in military training, consequently they applied while at 
Camp Lee for the rank of Noncommissioned officers. They were informed that 
with good deportment they "might become Privates, First Class." It was the 
best to be hoped for as the Labor Battalion with which they served was officered 
and noncommissioned officered by white men only. Nevertheless these men 
succeeded in getting themselves transferred to the Artillery at Camp Meade, 
and to the very last man they won the rank of noncommissioned officers — • 
mostly Sergeants. Two of the three men who eventually won their bars as 
officers were among this number who with good deportment "might have become 
Privates, First Class." 

But, let there be no doubt about it, three hundred widely different men 
will not be housed together in two small barracks and not develop epidemics of 
quarreling; thievery and deadly fights; will not stand for hours on guard in 
freezing weather of sleet, snow, wind and rain; will not be denied pass privileges 
and sentenced to the wood-pile because the Regimental Doctor's idea of illness 
differs with the Private's unless the morale and discipline of that Regiment 
smack miles beyond the ordinary. If there be anything more thoroughly equipped 
to test the morale and discipline of a Company and of a Regiment than a quar- 
antine. Infantry Drill Regulations has not yet discovered it. Yet Headquarters 
Company, instead of going on pass as had been promised, went into a most 
rigid quarantine the day after Christmas and so remained until February 22, '18. 
And who could forget the winter of 1917-'18? The weather was rotten, beastly! 
Snow came early in November and went through hard onto April. Water- 
pipes burst within three inches of the range, and, because of the measles, no 
congregating around the stoves was permitted. It was a court-martial offense 
to close the windows night or day. Six feet from the barracks guards patroled 
night and day. The Y. M. C. A., within twelve feet was forbidden and the 
Canteen in the same block might have been in Palestine for our presence there. 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 15 

On Sundays when the Camp was flooded with women-folks the best that could 
be hoped for was to pace up and down the "dead line" with them on the one side, 
and the soldier on the other, with always the guard stalking between. 

Yet that Company amused itself, went about it's tasks, soldiered without a 
break. There were no fights, no petty larcencies, no men in the guard-house, 
and not once was that quarantine broken or even bucked. "Old Eph" smiled 
and "carried on." 

(The phrase "Old Eph" as applied to the Colored soldier in these pages, is 
adopted because of a nearness to the heart of the Colored Fighter born of the 
revolution it worked among the sentiments with which the term was originally 
invested. Coined in France by an Officer it was couched in scorn and sarcasm for 
every thing colored, but as the months rolled around it's constant association 
with the most valorous deeds of the battle field; it's habitual presence where 
ever the gilded court of Chivalry unfurled her dazzling banners, and the fra- 
grance of it's glory wafted back from memory of those hard fought, death- 
stalked fields of France have happily served to clothe the term in the rosemary 
of honor and romance and placed it a household word in even the mouth of babes. 
The story of it's origin is as follows: An American Army Officer newly arrived 
in Brest lost his way one night and unable to find an M. P., (though how he ever 
reached such a blissful scene as the abscence of an M. P., is beyond me), ad- 
dressed himself to a tall colored soldier in the garb of the French Chasseur leaning 
against a half open door and talking to a young girl. "Which is the way to the 
Pontanezen Barracks?" he snapped, "and why in hell don't you salute?" The 
soldier looked at him, blinked his wonder, and shifting his weight to the other 
leg resumed his interrupted conversation with the girl. Accustomed to instant 
obedience from enlisted men, the officer fairly blazed with rage. "Look here, 
Mr. Nigger," he fumed, 'just because you've been in France a little longer than 
I have don't think that I have forgotten how to treat the like of you! I say 
which is the way to the barracks?" 

"No compre! No compre!" screamed the soldier. "Je parlez Francaise. 
No compre Englaise. Je ne par parlez Englaise." (Meaning literally: I don't 
understand. I don't understand. I speak French. I don't understand Eng- 
lish. I don't speak English!) But all of this was as unintelligible to the officer 
as his own question had been to the Moroccain. "The hell you say," the officer 
blurted out. 'Don't get funny with me. You'll tell me what I want to know 
or I'll knock your damned black block off!" and he laid his hand on his Colt 
and stepped between the Moroccain and the girl who instantly flung her young 
form in front of that of the soldier. The Moroccain still did not know what 
the officer said, but he did "compre" that the attitude of the other was one which 
when assumed in his own land just preceded the drawing of boloas by two men 
and the celebration, a little later, by one warrior over the death of the other. 
Lightly he brushed the girl aside, and his own knife leaped falcon-like from his 
girdle. Well — that officer found the way to the barracks all right but the route 
led dangerously near to Heaven or Hell according to his treatment of the thir- 
teenth verse of the twelfth chapter of the Ecclesiastes. 

During the officer's recovery he gave his version of how he chanced to have 
no revolver in hand, saying: "I thought the black rascal was an American — 
just a plain old Eph. It never occurred to me that they existed any where 
else." Hence the quoted origin of the term "Old Eph," — hissed then in dead- 
liest hate; whispered now in admiration, respect and deepest love.) 



16 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

No race on the face of the earth is so wonderfully blessed with the ability 
for self-amusement as the Colored Race, and much stock is taken in the comic 
side of his nature especially when it depicts his physical fear, but let him show 
himself unafraid of the supernatural or scornful of death and there be those 
who rack their brains to account for his actions on other grounds save personal 
bravery and sagacity. More often than not the oft repeated ludicrous answers 
contributed to Negroes when questions of fear and bravery are propounded 
are due to a natural spontaneity of wit peculiarly his own, — a priceless relic of 
those darker days when his fore-parents must need cultivate their mirth within 
their own household or be lashed if the upturned pot failed to encompass their 
laughter. 

The world makes haste to believe in his ludicrousness but a self-willed few 
are loath to accord him the "guts" to be brave and true. For instance, who has 
not heard this story: Sam and Bill were soon to go over the top. Sam was in 
a state of blue funk. Bill was delighted with the very prospect. '"Think of 
the glory!" he exclaimed; 'think what the papers will say — 'two brave Negroes 
capture Germans.' " "Dat aint what deys gwine ter say," says Sam, *deys 
gwine ter say 'whole Reg'ment ob white folks tromped ter def by niggers.' " 
(It being afore stated that a white Regiment was billeted in the immediate 
rear.) This story has been told from nearly every platform on which A. E. F., 
speakers have appeared. But how few of you have heard this story: A silent- 
unprepossessing colored soldier was picked for a rather ticklish piece of sharp- 
shooting. Before he could install himself he had to drag aside the bodies of 
three white soldiers slain there. (A white Regiment having previously "occupied" 
this sector.) The soldier was instructed to keep constant watch on a certain 
gap by way of which the enemy was known to reach his communicating trench. 
"Old Eph" settled down. Beyond in the far distance something stirred. "Old 
Eph's" rifle spoke once. The movement ceased; silence. But all during the 
night this was kept up. "Old Eph" banged away and ducked. Towards day 
break the officer returned, unable to resist the constant call of "Old Eph's" 
trusty. "Well, I hear you firing; what do you see?" he asked brusquely. "Noth- 
ing," replied Eph. "You told me to stop anything I 'thought moved' — see, — " 
Bang! went the rifle again. The officer peered, but saw nothing. He looked at 
"Old Eph" and observed: '"Hem, nerves, eh? Better come along; have to 
send a calmer man up here." But before that could be done the boys went over 
and took that particular bit of trench, and lo, and behold there were nineteen 
dead Germans in that six yard gap, each with a neat little bullet hole drilled 
straight through the brain! But beyond the most advanced man not one 
single track showed in the mud. "Old Eph" had not let one "'move on!" 

The former story is very readily believed; the latter begs repetition even. 
Such is very typical of the world's division of it's stock of credulity. Probably 
the greatest impetus is given this belief by the advertising which the Race itself 
aff"ords, often in the form of a modesty which defeats it's own ends. Who has 
not seen the trick nigger;" the "smart darkey" whose sole address to the atten- 
tion of other men is his ability to 'act fool" before them? He may deceive 
himself into believing that he only "acts fool" at times, but all his life is generally 
apt to become one of unrenumerative acting for which the Race pays with it's 
sobermindedness and integrity. For no person or people can continue to 'act 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 17 

fool" promiscuously without feeling the cap of the jester and the tail of the 
monkey grow over the very soul. Are we to be branded a Race of jesters? 

The inclination to play to the gallery is not confined to the illiterate only. 
It reaches up to the pedestal on which once sat one called by some the genius 
of the Race. Too often he spoke not what he believed but what he knew the 
galleries would applaud. In striking contrast to the above is the Young Negro 
who lacking the strength to force his convictions upon others, or, who doubting 
their sympathy, takes the shortest way out and denies his own convictions. 
The author chanced one night upon three of his comrades in close conversation 
about going over seas. All three were loud in declaring that they saw no reason 
why they should go out to fight another's battles when their own cause lay bleed- 
ing. They waxed warm with indignation at the very thought, but upon listening 
carefully and weighing their arguments against the scope of their intelligence 
one was forced to conclude that there existed somewhere a vast discrepancy. 
So, on the next day the author spoke privately with each of these men, and alone, 
beginning always with words like these: 

"Gee, I surely will be glad when the time comes to go over. I wont feel 
right if I don't have a part in this thing before it is over with." The reply of 
the first two men was almost identical, saying: "I too — I'm just crazy to get 
over there; always wanted to go; joined up to go over." "But," said the author, 
"you said last night that you did not want to go. How about it?" "Oh," 
they laughed, "/ said that because I thought that was the way they felt about it, and 
the other sounds so like bragging. It is my duty to go, and I want to do my duty\ 
One added that: "My little 'brown-skin' has already told me that if I don't go 
over and help to get the Kaiser, to find another hat rack for my cap," Yet if 
that same lady had been asked in Howard Theater if she thought colored soldiers 
should go over, she would undoubtedly have screamed: "NO!" The third — 
the proud father of a six-weeks old babe — went even further and said: "I don't 
care what anyone says; I can't explain it myself, but I know that it is right that 
every able bodied man should go over and serve. For myself I ask nothing, 
but somehow I feel that my best over there will give my boy a better fighting 
chance over here!" What nobler spirit dare anyone ask! "For myself I ask 
nothing, but for my boy — , — ." Great brave, noble spirit! He has wiped away 
all hope of an alibi when his son shall ask of America a fish. Sleep on brave 
warrior comrade of mine. Your pure spirit must have supped with the immortal 
Roosevelt's ere this. God will not forget you; America must and shall not! 

Such illustrations may be duplicated on the streets, in the Churches and 
theatres of any of our larger cities where Colored soldiers have congregated. 
Meet them and ask them if they would like to go back and they will visit upon 
upon you a wry face and shriek no — no — no! Yet if the call came today or 
tomorrow many of these same fellows would be missed from their accustomed 
places along the highways. I have heard them in public say that they would 
die rather than ever again go back to France with its filth, slush and mud, but 
in a privacy where only soldiers sat those same lips have voiced these sentiments: 
"Oh, I don't know; if it broke out again, I expect I would trail along with the 
rest." Such things may be a form of modesty but they do much to destroy the 
world's belief in the sturdiness and depth of character of the Race, and indulge 
a perversion of the truth — that Negroes love their Country and their Race 
pre-eminently. 



CHAPTER TWO 



PRE-WAR TEMPERAMENT. THE VOYAGE. "A SUB! A SUB!" 

The enviable record which the 351st Field Artillery made at Camp Meade, 
and which today stands unchallenged, could not have been the creation of a 
regiment less sure of its morale; less firm in its convictions. 

Gradually some of the enthusiasm of the men filtered into the hearts of the 
officers, and in the Regiment's last hours there it was accorded a treatment rare, 
if not entirely exceptional. More or less was it customary for Regiments about 
to move portward to go into quarantine. In some instances a seal was set upon 
the mail, and I very distinctly remember one Regiment which when it was placed 
on the priority list had an armed guard flung about its barracks. The 351st 
Field Artillery was visited with none of these contingencies — no seal was set 
upon the mail; pass privileges were not denied (men being on pass the very last 
afternoon and evening in Camp), and no semblance of a guard stationed. All 
these highest honors in the gift of the Commandery accorded this same Regiment 
which only a few months before had been decried as hopeless as soldiers and 
worse than hopeless as Artillerymen. 

When the whistle rang down the curtain on the last act of training at Camp 
Meade the yells and hurrahs which split the quiet of that wonderfully beautiful 
Sunday were as epochal as the reverberations hurled around the world from mem- 
orable Lexington. The Camp itself described a veritable flower garden, bursting 
with '"dusky maidens," ''pinks" and "browns" shouting their last good-byes, 
snatching farewell kisses, buckling on the pack and holsters of their knights 
and sending them away with the smile which afterwards silvered many a dull 
cloud in No Man's Land. 

In exactly one and one-half minutes the entire Regiment had entrained 
and the tram was under way. Where ever the troop train halted there gathered 
the loved ones of the soldier boys, for all the world seemed to know that the 
351st Field Artillery was moving that day. At Philadelphia especially did a 
large crowd gather. Evidently some Church had just closed for the station 
was flooded and many a chap saw in the throng old familiar faces. Yet not one 
man left or attempted to leave the train, not even did they grouch because they 
could not. "Nope, can't come off," they yelled back to invitations to stroll. 
"In the Army now, but I'll see you when I come home with the Kaiser," On 
through the night the troop train dashed while the songs of the soldiers bounded 
to and fro amid the hills and made the little vales to ring joyfully. 

Monday morning the Regiment went on board ship, but by virtue of the 
fact that many of the sailors were granted two days shore leave, it was readily 
deduced that the vessel would not sail before Wednesday. Some of the fellows 
were within three minutes ride of their homes, and without exception these were 
the unfortunates whose homes were sufficiently far from Meade to preclude all 
possibility of their receiving passes hitherto, yet when their requests were refused 
they simply smiled, "soldiered" and added another item to the Kaiser's credit 
slip. 

At high noon, Wednesday, June 16, 1918, all hands were ordered below. 
It was beastly hot aboard ship, and in spite of the best efforts of the Sanitary 

18 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 19 

Corps the hold of a ship is ever a foully-smelling, poorly ventilated place. But 
down below went every man jack of them, save the Regimental Noncommissioned 
staff and Clerks, singing always the loved refrain: 

'"We're going over; we're going over — 
Well they put it up to us to settle up this muss, 
So what do we care! So what do we care! 
We'll go sailing over the foam, and we'll hang the Kaiser 
To the sour apple tree — 

Then we'll all come marching home!" 

At 3:48 P. M., the U. S. S. Great Northern paid off to the call of the tugs 
and by nightfall the statue of Liberty was a memoiy along with Roast Beef and 
Apple Pie. The U. S. S. Great Northern, while she lay at her mooring, had 
appeared very princely and adequate (and she was both) to unaccustomed eyes, 
but when she slipped past quarantine and stepped upon the watery highway 
which leads to France she seemed all too frail for so great a task, and it is believed 
that fully one half of the men speculated as to their belief in her going down, 
but on the third and fourth days out there were many who would have welcomed 
a sinking or any thing which would have permitted them to get off that dancing, 
prancing bit of a ship. They were that sea-sick. Although sea-sick "Old Eph" 
rubbed his Alladin's lamp and smiled. The sick fellow laughed at the sicker 
fellow and the perfectly hearty chap made rough sport of both. The latter's 
sense of humor some times exerted itself in an almost merciless manner. 

I remember one lusty chap who chanced one day upon a rather sickly group 
of soldiers sitting close up beside the smoke stack, afraid to stir lest the lunch 
they had bolted follow the breakfast scattered promiscuously over the deck. 

"Feeling better?" he asked, sympathetically. They nodded in the affirm- 
ative. "'How would you like to have a nice, fat, juicy piece of pork?" he teased, 
dangling before their eyes just that very worst thing for sea-sickness. It was 
the straw which broke the camel's back. There was a wild scramble for the 
rail. Some reached it, but all lost their lunch while the jester fared on to fresher 
fields. It was some satisfaction to those poor sick souls to live to see this same 
chap asprawl on the deck; his head under the rail; his dinner going down and 
curses coming up from the deck below where his mess landed. 

Sunday morning the siren screamed the approach of danger and every man 
tumbled up on deck, tighting his life belt and making every thing safe to abandon 
ship. Not a cloud was in the sky. A calm, smooth sea was running, so that with 
high powered glasses it was comparatively easy to see hard off to starboard and 
close onto eight thousand yards was the object of alarm — what appeared a three 
inch pipe projecting perhaps some eighteen or twenty inches above the glassy 
waters. The behavior of the ship's crew was commendable; splendid — sufficient 
to inspire courage in the weakest. Every man flew to his post; calm, precise; 
methodical, attaining that rarest of all accomplishments — haste without waste. 
The Commander's hand rose and fell sharply. One of the ship's guns (forward) 
spoke like a thoroughbred. At the third shot that seemingly impossible target 
was sent spinning in the water. Still the thing came on. We might easily 
have turned about and run away, but instead the wheel was slammed hard over 
to starboard. The vessel slued around and like an avenging angel bore down 
upon its prey, all the while the gunners hit with the regularity of a practiced 
habit. 



20 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

At this formation I stood between Private John H. Myers (Balto. Co., Md.) 
on the left and Mechanic Henry Gamble (Pittsburgh, Pa.), on the right. To 
the latter I said: "We may go down — eh?" "Yes," he said evenly, "what 
about it?" "Oh, nothing," I replied more steadily, jacked up by his superior 
courage. "Swim?" he asked after a bit. "A little," I replied, recalling my 
timourous essays at swimming around Farmville, Va. He grunted. "Stick to 
me," he said. "I'm good." And I felt like kicking myself because I had just 
been wondering if chivalry were the privilege of a certain class only. Private 
Myers was rather proud of his record with pistol and rifle and kept grumbling: 
"God, I hope they come within rifle range!" 

Meanwhile thousands of eyes raked the horizon for the approach of other 
hostile craft; our sister ship trailing a few points off", her gunners "setting" upon 
their pieces. It was not until the object swept beneath our very bows that we 
knew for a surety that it was not a "sub," but merely a buoy which had slipped 
its cables and drifted out to sea. But the fact that it was only a "scare" in no 
wise aff^ected the psychology of the situation. It accomplished two great facts. 
Firstly, it showed the brave man how little effort it required to be brave and 
inspired the weaker ones to bravery; secondly, it wiped clean the last vestige ot 
sea-sickness. 



On Wednesday — exactly one week from sailing — at 4:43 P. M., the head- 
lands of Brest hove into sight and by 6:03 the U. S. S. Great Northern had 
dropped anchor. The vessel swerved slightly, then drew up close to the wind 
and lay quiet at her moorings. It was France! Lord, how glad we were! No 
one slept aboard ship that night. A holiday spirit was rampant — cards, laughter, 
songs and jests whiled away the hours. On Thursday morning, June 27, 1918, 
at 8:ll2, Color Sergeants John L. Clark (Pittsburgh, Pa.), and Clarence N. 
Mcintosh (a volunteer from Hampton Institute) with guards George P. Braxton 
and Charles H. Dorsey (Baltimore, Md.), stepped ashore, being the first of the 
enlisted men in the Regiment to touch French soil. 

Behind them in the first squad came the author. But before that event 
our's was the great pleasure of hearing the ship's commander say to our Col. 
Cole: "Sir, I have brought over many troops but none who kept and left as 
nice a ship and whose morale, discipline and personal appearance were as perfect 
as yours." If you know ship commanders you are aware that lying or plain 
"bull" is not numbered among their vices. Col. Cole was certainly not the type 
of man to withhold any such information and immediately upon reaching billets 
in the Pontanezen Barracks, in a speech to the non-commissioned officers he 
expressed his entire satisfaction and appreciation, and also his belief in the 
Regiment's strength of character and powers to withstand the shocks yet to 
come. His was the opinion that he commanded the "finest Regiment in France." 
So far as we may learn subsequent developments instead of altering that opinion 
have corroberated it. 



CHAPTER THREE 



LATHUS— SOCIAL EQUALITY— LONELINESS— MAIL— PREJUDICE 

The scope of American training was now finished. The voyage over left 
nothing to be desired, but there were those who knew that the second of the 
two greatest tests yet to come — the test of social equality — lay just ahead. How 
much truth there was in the far flung taunt that the Colored youth would not 
acquit himself well when left alone amid a people whose regard for class and 
color worship was shorn away with the guilotine in 1789 was about to be tested. 
It was no secret that the Department had deliberated considerably on the advisa- 
bility of sending colored fighting troops to Europe where they must be billeted 
with other troops and in French towns where only women and children lived; 
and it is a loved confession that it was not without serious trepidations that some 
of the Regiment watched for the day when the cards would be placed, as it were, 
upon the table and "Old Eph" be left to battle alone the accumulated prejudice 
of the Western Hemisphere. On the 4th of July the 351st Field Artillery ini- 
tiated the little villages of Lathus and Montmorillon as training areas for American 
troops. The effects of this adventure are noteworthy only when proper cogni- 
zance is taken of the cardinal facts — that the peasantry had never before seen 
colored American or American soldiers at all. Had the peasantry and the 
colored soldiery met in the Sahara Desert they could not have been less acquainted. 
The language was foreign, thus eliminating the possibility of any Germane sym- 
pathy among the contestants and swinging any possible favor to the side of the 
officers, some of whom had taken advantage of their superior opportunity and 
possessed a working knowledge of the tongue; but, most important of all. Preju- 
dice, because of race, creed or previous conditions of servitude, does not, in this 
particular, inherently exist in the French mind. Thus "Old Eph," his officers 
and the French peasantry were thrown together in a cockpit on nearly a common 
basis, and left to their own ingenuities to exist with each other, in spite of each 
other or because of each other. 

All the world knows the result of that contest. Gen. Foch wrote it in 
Croix de Guerre on the Colored soldiers' breasts and from the chevalier cords 
which a grateful nation wreathed about his shoulders shook the immortal light 
by which Democracy beat down the foes of Humanity and Civilization. If 
there exist anything more remarkable than the wonderful manner in which the 
Peasantry grew into "Old Eph's" heart, it is the wonderful and remarkable 
manner in which "Old Eph" grew into the heart of the Peasantry which is the 
heart of Glorious France. 

Immediately upon the sounding of Retreat the troops fared forth to conquer 
the town. Their advent was heralded in a most pleasing manner. From every 
corner of the village the children ran to meet them, their clumsy sabbots clat- 
tering merrily upon the rough cobbles of old Napoleonic streets. In a twinkling 
the troops disappeared amid an avalanche of tumbling, laughing, humanity, 
climbing upon his broad shoulders, riding on his long, swinging arms, cluttering 
his every step and adorning themselves with whatever part of his accoutrements 
they could detach. In less than no time the troops filled every room in the little 
village — from cellar to garret. Stores, wine shops, taverns hummed like a 

21 



22 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

massive bee-hive. Mostly the troops took what they fancied and then child- 
ishly held out their hands filled with French coins for the land-Iady to take her 
charge. Yet, through it all ran no tenor of discord. Over hill and dale strolled 
the troops hemmed in on every side with a bevy of pretty, gesticulating girls. 
Here and there, perhaps, an officer was privileged with a friendship, but mostly 
they stood afar off^, agape with wonder at this new phase in "Old Eph's" char- 
acter. It was reserved for Corporal Edward A. Spann (Easton, Pa.), to have 
the most unique experience of all. He rivaled a Colonel, or, rather he had the 
rivalry of a Colonel, for 'pon my word the Corporal held the better hand. 

Below the town ran a small stream in which the soldiers bathed and in 
which they were wont to wash their clothes. But more often than not their 
approach with laundry made them the object of the washerfolks — women and 
girls — congregated there, who immediately strove to be the first to get to the 
troops to wash their clothes — not for pay but for the sheer love of service for 
France. If the soldier grew thirsty as he rambled over the hills he stopped in 
at the first house and if it were after after the "magic hour" — Retreat — it was 
more likely wine he was given than water. On the road no peasant's cart or 
aristocrat's carriage passed the colored soldier without the pleading invitation 
to sit beside the driver on the high seat. On Sundays the village came to the 
Regiment; strolled with it, sat in front of its tents, shared its mess, and every 
fellow was rightfully called poor if he boasted less than three about his tent. 
So things went until long before "Old Eph" became expert at counting francs 
and centimes he was enthroned and crowned the village's king and mighty 
knight and chevalier. 

Added significance is attached to "Old Eph's" attainments here because 
of the conditions which he had to combat from within. Surrounded by an 
admiring throng, yet the boys were lonesome; blue, for crowds do not make 
company any more than a multiplicity of words elicts conversation. One may 
stagnate in New York City, but live in a world of romance and bliss alone in 
the heart of the desert, and in spite of the triumph over exterior conditions some 
of the most lonesome days believed to have been endured by any Regiment in 
France were visited upon the 351st Field Artillery during its stay in Lathus. 
The Regiment had been in France hard onto two months before the first word 
from the outside world was received, or before there came even the rumor that 
mail was on the way. First it was twelve sacks, then eight and all the way 
down until finally one poor, pitiful little sack of old letters was its share. I 
have seen some wonderful pictures, but few deserving to rank with the one 
presented on that memorable red-letter day when the boys lined up for the first 
mail in France. It was as though some one had said: "The Master will pass 
this way and bless us," and every face wore that longing, hoping, fearing expres- 
sion which might be expected when a man's soul salvation depended upon a 
glance from his Lord. And for the chap who received a letter or even a card 
from home a light beamed in his features such as Raphael never saw nor Mozart 
dreamed. But for the one who received nothing Dante never painted more 
sorrow on the faces of those for whom Hope was forever fled than these faces 
showed. Long after the officer had finished calling off the names this latter group 
stood about, stricken as though life was a dead thing and they the deadest of 
all. One little fellow I remember well — Private Hamere D. Davis — (he must 
have bolstered his age to enlist) received no mail and his very heart seemed 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 23 

broken, but his boon companion — then "Private" Charles S. Taylor (Indian- 
apolis, Ind.), did receive one letter and he lay on his back out behind his tent 
simply devouring the written words. Private Davis stood it as long as he could, 
and then he siddled over: "Give you two bits to let me read your letter," he 
said thickly, stretching forth a hand that trembled slightly. He didn't know 
who the letter was from and he didn't care. He didn't have two bits and neither 
did any one else because the Regiment had not been paid since May, but that 
did not matter. Charles S. Taylor was one of the whitest men it has ever been 
my good pleasure to know. "Sure, old Top," he said, "go to it," and he handed 
over the letter. Good Lord how Davis ate up those words! The letter was from 
Taylor's mother — one of those priceless epistles written by an old fashioned 
mother — such a letter that any fellow might catch up and read and think that 
it was written by his own mother expressly for him. It spoke of keeping the 
feet dry; of red flannel and mutton tallow for the sore chest and of bathing the 
feet in salt water when they ached from the long march. 

Favorite among the soul pictures which memories of Lathus conjure up, is 
one of the close of day; a light, shifting breeze banking a snowy pillow of white, 
incandescent clouds against a soft background of blue, rich purple and gold; a 
scattering herd drifting lazily through a sharp rift in a mossy ridge; a sleepy 
brook ambling musically under a vine-crested bridge; the 351st Field Artillery 
Band playing in the Public Square; children at play in the streets; soldiers 
everywhere, their fingers entwined in those of the lassies, their thoughts wrapped 
around the pillars of their own homes "over there;" blue doves strutting and 
cooing in the eaves of a seven hundred year old Church on the steps of which 
sat our good Chaplin, Rev. Woolfolk; Sergeant Thornton; Sergeant SchoIIey E. 
Webb and Private Harry T. Kelley, ringed about the noble, but bent old form 
of the village Padre, his cap off, his tired, knotty old hands clasped, his thin 
gray locks sweeping the tanned, wrinkled skin of neck and in his eyes slumbering 
the embers of a celestial fire as though a new wick strove to glimmer through a 
cracked and worn vessel. 

Upon such a scene at the close of an August day another Regiment — needless 
to say not colored — marched. "Old Eph" stood in wonder. Full well he knew 
the force of prejudice — knew all too well how too frequently the bitter years 
roll; the hearts that break; the lives that are snuffed out before even a little lie 
is laid in the dust, and his throne swayed and trembled mightily beneath him. 
It did not need a prophet to tell that the morrow would bring forth. True 
enough, day break found his worst fears confirmed. Grave and divers rumors, 
eminating from an all too readily guessed source, came to his ears, as to how he 
had been pictured as monkeys; named as infinitely inferior to other American 
soldiers and branded as cowards driven into the Army and out of America because 
he was venereal infested and hopelessly sick. I, myself, saw groups of school 
children slip behind colored soldiers and peer to see if, indeed they wore tails 
like monkeys. In the grasp of elderly hands and the question in honest peasant 
eyes I read the search their souls made into the heart and body of the colored sol- 
dier, but, thank God, I saw, too, the look of utter satisfaction and commend- 
ation which shamed away their momentary fear. More than one Mademoiselle 
asked of us on that strange morning: "Messieurs vous malade? Vous no malade. 
Messieurs?" (Gentlemen are you sick? You are not sick. Gentlemen!) And 



24 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

when the inevitable answer came: "Non, Mademoiselle, nous ne par malade." 
(No, Lady; we are not sick), they would break in the most radiant of smiles, 
grasp our hands and exclaim: "II a correcte. Messieurs! Vous non malade — 
bon — bon — ah, tres bon soldat! (It is correct. Gentlemen! You are not sick — 
good — good, ah, very good soldier!) But ah, my friends, these things hurt to 
the very heart! Why should this most damnable of all human curses — Prejudice 
— follow us there and attempt to breathe the stench of hate in the garden where 
the fair flowers of trust and friendship were bursting to blossom? 

These other soldiers would not be one of us. We had hardly dared expect 
so much but we did expect to be, at least, left alone, and we did know that nothing 
could have carried America higher in the estimation of the world than a rigid 
shelving of the traditional grievance of Racial Prejudice while the great bleeding 
heart of Humanity was being goose-stepped to death under the iron heel of Prus- 
sianism. How hard put to must have been the French mind to accommodate 
this weird picture of two peoples crossing three thousand miles of submarined 
water to die side by side, if need be, for a common cause, yet scorning even in 
the shadow of the cross to break bread one with the other at the same table. 
The Regiment stood at bay. "Old Eph's" cards were face upward on the lap of 
the Gods and he left them there, scorning to hold by trickery what he had won 
in open, fairest play. The Regiment felt that these people knew past all doubting 
just where Envy sought to blind Justice with its glasses of jade. They who 
spoke with single tongues and naked hearts so close to Nature's great throbbing 
healthy heart, must surely recognize health and sure manhood and character 
in the 3olst Field Artillery. (We carried not one venereal to France. We left 
not one there. We brought not one back to America. Few Regiments can 
truthfully say as much. I know of none that can say more. All thanks to our 
good Medical Sergeants and rollicking soldier and gentleman, 1st Lieutenant 
"Bill" Howard.) Such a lie as our enemies (and the word "enemies" is used 
without malice, for all enemies are not necessarily malicious ones. And among 
the most persistent apostles of Racial Prejudice some of our own are numbered. 
We love them, but we cannot countenance their scorn for the inalienable rights 
of all free people) sought to foster mocked the better judgment of these people, 
and by nightfall the colored soldiery was on the crest of a wave of appreciation 
which swept them far out into the deep of the Peasant's sea of admiration and 
utmost respect. "Old Eph's" throne was steadier than ever, not in spite of these 
tales, but as it ever will be, because of them. Before that night was done Fate 
snatched the veil from a point thought by all many years yet in the distance. 
We saw those other soldiers refused patronage and driven from the shops, wine 
rooms and taverns, and followed into the streets with the shrieking cry: "Allez! 
Allez! Le blanc soldat no bon — ugh!" (Go! Go! The white soldier no good — 
ugh!) Children were seen to flee in terror at their approach, and the red flame 
of shame and anger to mount in the cheeks of mothers and daughters wherever 
they passed. Believe not that every soldier in this other Regiment deserved 
these things, but the peasant was but using the scale in which he had seen others 
weighed. Again, not all good soldiers in France were colored; nor yet all the 
bad, but Truth and Justice are inseparably allied against the contentions that 
a wholesale rottenness rankled among all colored troops. 

Always had it been customary when our band started into the village for 
the people to make haste (of their own accord) to arrange seats for the musicians 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 25 

in the Public Square, but on the following day when our instruments were packed 
and this other band went forth to play it was twenty and two minutes before the 
first chair was surrendered, and then the obliging one not even tarrying to witness 
the effort. 

Long before the break o' day of the next morrow the Regiment was under 
way to entrain for La Courtine the Artillery training grounds. The little village 
was thought to be yet at its dreams, but not so, for suddenly every door and 
shutter crashed open and the populace emptied itself upon the streets, the 
ladies still wearing their kerchiefs, their hair yet fussed from slumber. For a 
short moment they stood in tense silence, unheeded tears dimming their vision; 
then in another moment they were upon us, cheering, shouting, calling the names 
of those they knew, clinging to them, walking with them even to the little station 
where they stood whispering their good-byes; their hopes for good luck until we 
should meet again until the long troop train bustled away. 



CHAPTER FOUR 



LA COURTINE— ARTILLERY TRAINING 

On the train some one slapped me lustily on the back. I wheeled to look 
up at the long, lanky, Ichabod-Crane-Iike figure of Sergeant John L Johnson 
(Mt. Washington, Md.). "Well, Bo," he beamed, "we did it — eh?" 'Did 
what?" I tried to snap, as if I did not know what lay nearest his big old heart. 
"Did what? — don't be an ass," he growled. "Why, won out like men at Lathus! 
And, say, I shall never fear again. The way these 'birds' (an expression for 
soldier handed out by the Company's first Captain, Captain Carl M. Taute, 
and pronounced^b-u-r-d), stood up under the hospitality of those people makes 
one think they must be angel proof. It was always the Regiment of which he 
thought and there were many others just like he. 

At La Courtine the Regiment was jolted out of some of its cocksuredness 
by losing its beloved Commander, Colonel Cole (now Brigadier-General) W. E. 
Cole), who was superseded by newly commissioned Colonel W. H. Carpenter, 
a southern gentleman of many sterling qualities, absolutely fool proof, but cursed 
with the deadly delusion that he "knew colored people, and knew it was impossi- 
ble for them not to lie." He lived to explode his own theory- in as much that upon 
occasions he took face value stock in the word of his non-commissioned officers 
against that of the officers of the Military Police with whom trouble threatened. 
Because the Colonel was a great mathematician and a close student of the great 
stragetic school of War he was prone to be a partisan where others, not so for- 
tunate as he, were concerned, and as late as early in August, back at Lathus, he 
expressed his sentiments to the non-commissioned officers, telling them that the 
Regiment would never make Artillerymen; that it was impossible; that their 
inherent ability was far too inadequate to grasp the intricate problems of firing 
data, yet within three short weeks after the Regiment gazed its first time upon 
French 155's (six inch heavy cannon) the Colonel — by now known as "Ben 
Hickory" — clapped his thighs and exclaimed to his brother officers: "Fine! 
Fine! Can't be beat. By God, my men fight! Go to the front next week sure!" 
And fine it was. The guns were shortly turned over to the troops, a problem 
was handed them. They must find the coordinates, throw out Out-Posts (O. 
P.'s); install lines of communication and demolish the objective in a certain 
time. They did it. The long lanyard which other troops were wont to use, 
"Old Eph" scorned, replacing it with a raw hide shoe lace tied to his finger as 
though he feared to loose his precious "Hun Tamer," "City of Baltimore," or 
'Hell Cat" by which pet names he dubbed his favorite pieces. And these very 
guns which "Old Eph" used were an issue to another Regiment — not colored — 
but that Regiment failed as Artillerymen and never saw the firing line in that 
capacity. It was this Regiment and the only one with which we had trouble in 
France, yet the most scathing burlesque written about the 351st by any troops 
in France was written by a member of that Regiment. A clipping of this bur- 
lesque was sent to one of us while we were yet in France, and in that burlesque 
the writer wrote of the "Battle of La Courtine." There was never such a battle! 
La Courtine is not a battle field but an Artillery training area — miles behind the 
firing line! 

26 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 27 



Much credence was given to the rumor in high circles that "Ben Hickory" 
is moving Heaven and Earth to get to the front." Certainly from the time 
that he was sure "my men can fight" until the signing of the Armistice he was 
never satisfied with aught less than a Hun position for a target. 

And because only fully equipped Regiments could hope to go to the front, 
and because of the whispered probability that the Regiment might be horse- 
drawn, when an assignment of horse equippage arrived in camp "Ben Hickory" 
promptly seized the entire out-put — horses, mules, wagons, harness, saddles 
and spurs — apportioned it among the Batteries and stood pat. It no longer 
mattered to him whether we were motorized, horse-drawn or hand pushed so 
long as we got to "that firing line." He subsequently had to give up the entiie 
equippage when our tractors arrived. These tractors were brought to us by a 
retinue of officers. On the next day Lieutenant "Pop" Wade gave a demon- 
stration to prospective chafFeurs, explained the mechanism and what might be 
expected of them. Just one day later "Old Eph" had them cake-walking all 
over the camp. 

But, the skeptic will say, they were alwajs directed by officers. Not so. 
All over France went details — large and small — of colored enlisted men in charge 
of non-commissioned officers only. Sergeants Charles McPherson (Annapolis, 
Md.); Jacob M. Sampson (Va. Union University, Richmond, Va.); Robert G. 
Elliott and Mechanic Cornelius Hargrave (Baltimore, Md.), and many others, 
sergeants, and corporals as well, carried and brought men from every corner of 
the Republic, and not one man was left away or was put under guard for dis- 
obedience while away. Or, an order would come; a detail of mechanics — if it 
chanced to be work for them — would be called, given transportation and told to 

report to the Commanding Officer at a three or four day journey away. 

They went, reported, and were told: "Here is an assignment of cars, or horses 
for your Regiment, and here is a map of the route. Report without delay to 
your Commanding Officer." Oft times the maps proved hopelessly incorrect. 
Yet always at the appointed time "Old Eph" showed up. Not once did anyone 
have to go after him because of refusal to obey his non-commissioned officer or 
because his own ingenuity failed to meet unparalled contigencies of road condi- 
tions or when his chart was kilometers amiss. 

"Ben Hickory" saw the triumph of color at Lathus; saw the wonderful 
alacrity with which "Old Eph" became a part of the guns he fired; saw the 
complex engine of the tractors yield up its every secret to his deft touch; saw 
him go and come unpiloted from coast to coast, but it was reserved for an acci- 
dent to demonstrate "Old Eph's" fearlessness and utter devotion to duty. They 
were moving a gun one night, bringing it down from a crested position. Three 
men were on the limber. Half way down the hill the cannon snatched away 
from all but the three on the limber and tore madly down. On-lookers shouted 
to the men to let go, as it was impossible to stop the plunge of the heavy gun. 
Two men leaped clear, but Private Willie Lee (Suffolk, Va.), and of Battery A) 
clung tightly. The wheels struck a stone and bounded like a wild thing; the 
tongue went skyward and Private Lee was shot off into space. When they 
picked him up his neck was broken. This affair removed the last fly from the 
Colonel's ointment. He spoke in glowing terms of the lad's fine efforts, gave 
him a military funeral and ordered every man in the Regiment to attend, he 
leading, although it was Sunday and the day of passes when the officers always 
disappeared at Reveille. It was so he saw yet another phase in the character of 



28 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

this people whose very soul he thought he knew, and the expression on his face 
was kinsman of the one on Washington's when after being told how the militia 
stood fire, he remarked: "Then the liberties of the country are safe." 

Still there were those on whose soul the veneer of appreciation lay lightly 
like melting snow-flakes, and who upon the slightest provocation, real or 
imagined, did not scruple to make the colored fighter the butt of every brutal 
joke. It is not, however, in the Army alone that such conditions exist, but in 
Civil life as well. Indeed, some of the leading wits, cartoonists and artists of 
the country seem possessed of but one single sense of humor and that having its 
source in the vitals of the Colored Race. 

If it be his wit which invites their pen the accompanying illustrations strive 
mightily to usurp first place in the observer's gaze; if his valorous deeds upon 
the field of battle, the hero, himself, may well be excused for not recognizing the 
purported portrait of himself. Such may be but friendly overtures towards 
the Race, but it is not to be denied that by such much of the depth of character 
and honor of achievement are ruthlessly shorn away. During the visit of Major 
R. R. Moton to the Regiment at Pont-a-Mousson, a corps of camera men ap- 
peared to make Regimental pictures. It was suggested that pictures be made 
of our Regimental Sergeants Major; Battalion Sergeants Major; or of First 
Sergeants and Sergeants and Corporals; or a mixture, or of the Regiment en masse 
but it was none of these things which these camera men wanted, but rather 
they sought to take three of the least educated, of the least soldieily appearance 
and photograph them crouched in the mud beside a stone wall, grinning broadly 
and gnawing on hard tacks. Such was the type of picture they wished to flash 
upon the screen of the world as typical of the 35lst Field Artillery. Does any 
one question as to what the effects of such a picture would be with a view of 
establishing the intelligence of the Regiment? It is not at all improbable that 
the world of moving picture fans will one day be called upon to witness the 
revolting scene of the hanging of a Private of the 804th Pioneers at Belleville 
on the morning of the 9th of November, but the theatres themselves will crumble 
to dust before the world gets even a glimpse of that impressive scene of the 
awarding of the Distinguished Service Crosses to Lieutenant Campbell and 
Private Bernard Lewis on the 8th of November and in the very same locality, 
or of the hanging of another Private (not colored because latter statistics have 
proven that at the date of this second hanging no colored soldier had been hanged) 
earlier in the year and for which on the day of execution the entire camp at La 
Courtine stood at attention from 6:00 A. M., to 6:10 A. M. during which time 
the event was to take place. 

It is manifest that much effort is expended to rob whatever good thing the 
Negro does, whether in civil life or in the military, of all honor and glory and to 
portrait it as an accident— just had to happen, and not as a direct result of much 
hard labor and intutive ability. Proof positive of this may be found in the 
portraj'al and recital of the glorious deeds of Lewis and Johnson. I saw such a 
picture of Johnson. The Colored lad's face was horrid with fear, his whole person 
portraited as one of abject terror, yet about him lay his foes — the foes of the man 
who penned that stupidest of all pictures. None of the proud soldierly bearing, 
none of the glory of battle which the youth could not help but feel, appeared, 
and too, some dullard had dared write that he did his deadly work with a razor! 
Why seek to strip him of the honor of having so successfully mastered the art 
of bayonet fencing that twelve of his veteran foes could not touch him? Why 




JOHN L. CLARK 
TYPICAL OF REGIMENTAL CALIBRE. 



WITH GOOD DEPORTMENT HE MIGHT HAVE 

BECOME PRIVATE FIRST CLASS." AT CAMP 

LEE: WITH A CLEAN BREAK HE BECAME 

FIRST SERGEANT. AND THEN COLOR 

SERGEANT AT CAMP MEADE. AND 

BATTALION SERGEANT MAJOR 

ON THE FIELDS OF FRANCE. 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 29 

strive to send down to the ages a picture of him with the common alley weapon 
as though he had crept upon his foes and slain them while they slept? Why 
not say that he parried, thrust; jabbed out and in in the best approved Perishing 
style? Why not? 

Long to be remembered too is a picture which recently appeared in a widely 
circulated magazine, depicting a colored soldier high-jumping into a German 
trench. In either hand he flourished a razor. Beneath him on his knees, his 
hands raised in an attitude of prayer, his cap shot from his head with fear, was a 
German soldier and beneath the picture ws the problematical question of the 
Colored fighter: 'Hair cut or shave?" Again the appearance of the Negro 
was destined to excite more laughter than the appearance of the captive; least of 
all things was it calculated to inspire respect for the Colored fighter as a master 
of the red game of War. This particular picture by some means got posted in 
the orderly room of Headquarters Company 351st Field Artillery — probably 
the most visited orderly room in France after the General's. One officer, espec- 
ially, took unique pleasure in calling attention to the knotty hair; thick lips and 
pictured fear of the colored lad, and said: ''I bet that was some scared darky, 
too!" but that officer's wife is not widowed nor his two babes orphaned today 
because a "scared darky" blazed him a way to freedom when his own (the officer's) 
automatic jammed from inexperienced handling. 

It was here in La Courtine that I had the exquisite pleasure of seeing again 
my old school mate and pal — Sergeant Burnette Griggs (Farmville, Va.), He 
was freshly returned with a detail of some forty odd men under his sole command. 
They had been practically all over France buying horses for the Government. 
He told me of days on days when a hard tack would have been a delicacy; of 
times when a dry spot along the road where they slept would have been the envy 
of a king, and of wild nights in Epinwall when the Boches rained hell upon them 
and their charges. "Would you like to go home?" I asked. "Sure," he re- 
plied. "Guess every fellow would." "If they gave you an honorable discharge 
and a pass-port would you beat it for the little old U. S. A.?" I asked again. 
"The devil, no!" he said. "I came over to see this thing through, and I mean 
to do it." "Is that the way your Regiment (the 350th F. A.) feels about it?" 
I teased. "Yep; every man of them! he solemnized. And again I recalled 
those words of Washington: "The liberties of the Country (Race) are safe." 

Here in the last days of the Regiment's stay this other Regiment from 
Lathus arrived. Their advent was sounded by an epidemic of brawls and street 
fights in which "Old Eph" demonstrated a prowess and physical ability to care 
for himself which later reddened the earth of Marbache Sector with German 
blood. As to the justice of their fighting "Ben Hickory's" words are more elo- 
quent than mine. 'My men good men," he said, "but they fight — fight — fight 
like hell if you bother them!" This last clause is both pertinent and prophetic. 
It became axiomatic that whenever a colored soldier was joined by one not col- 
ored the latter alway prefaced his remarks by saying: "I don't belong to the 

," naming the Regiment with which the 351st always had trouble. 

Or, 'I come from Pennsylvania or New York or some other liberal state." "Old 
Eph" had set his mark upon some; had put the fear of God in to their hearts 
and these other wanted no trouble with him, and it is momentous that because 
they wanted none, they got none. 



30 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

Not many days passed before our fondest dreams came true. Orders to 
'■go forward to the firing line" were received. "Old Eph" was ready — heart and 
soul; body and mind — primed to the go, and eager for the fray. History, to 
lay any claim whatever to accuracy and fairness, cannot eliminate from its 
fairest pages the gallant exploits of the colored soldier; and this other History 
and the people of this other History are doomed to oblivion if they forget too 
readily those other lives laid beside their own on the altar of sacrifice in Baal's 
temple of War. Traditions are the natural heritage of a people and because of 
them they may comfort themselves with whatever delusions they wish as to 
race superiority; race ascendancy, kulture, so long as they are not forced upon 
others, and suffering results there from, but let that happen and those same 
delusions will throttle and crush them just as those who vaingloriously inspired 
and fostered the red hobgoblin of the French Revolution and the recent holo- 
caust eventually disappeared into its capacious maw. Aye, yes, delusions are 
sweet, sweet things, but so is the wine of the Gorgias. 



CHAPTER FIVE 



LA COURTINE— A PSYCHOLOGICAL UP-HEAVAL 

Now that there no longer existed a doubt that the Regiment was going to 
the front a great psychological upheaval took place among some of the officers. 
It was no secret that the officers of a Regiment going to the front were admon- 
ished that the dark of the firing line were an ill chosen place for the settling of 
private grievances and that the slate should be wiped clean before this greatest 
opportunity for foul play was reached, but the Regiment was certainly not pre- 
pared for the litteral and liberal interpretation of that admonition which some 
officers demonstrated. The frigidity of mifitary discipline is hardly calculated 
to be conducive to the productivity of comradeship and the development of 
personal friendship between officers and enlisted men, albeit military discipline 
and courtesy were not compiled for the special becifit of enlisted men only. 
Men may be officers and gentlemen as well; some times they are. In all of the 
manifold corrective measures which the Manual of Court-Martial provides, 
rare are the instances in which the sentence of death may be spoken of as mete, 
and then only in the jurisdiction of a properly constituted and duly appointed 
court. Yet I know personally of an instance when an enlisted man was ordered: 
"Don't talk back to me, and get up on deck in three minutes, or I'll put a bullet, 
through your head!" Men have lost their bars, and I dare say their lives, as 
well, for less than that. Certainly it made the speaker's insurance significant 
for he was probably nearer death at that particular moment than ever Fritz 
brought him. Were it not for the very extenuating circumstances surrounding 
this instance no attempt at apology would be offered for the lack of immediate 
obedience on the soldier's part, but for three days the soldier had been sick and 
in that time had eaten nothing. Before now men have died of sea-sickness, 
and still others have deliberately walked past the boards out into the deep 
from sheer misery of it. Still this soldier might have been able to manipulate 
the four flights of companionway but Humanity and Humanitarian ethics 
were not beautified by insistence which had for its object only the demon- 
stration and abuse of authority. This instance and the sing-song of one 
other officer to "shoot one of you birds some day," constitute the only ex- 
ception in this particular class, though there were some one or two other in- 
dividuals whose chief pleasure in life lay in the opportunity which their 
position afforded to take the joy out of the lives of others. But when the 
upheaval came these very individauls wore in every expression, tone, word and 
deed, the perfectly flagrant appeal: "Let us have peace. If we have grievances 
one to the other let us patch them up here and now. I am willing. I want to 
go back to see my wife and children and I know you do too, so let us forget all 
little unpleasantries." Who was it? — Shakespeare, I believe, who said: "Con- 
science makes cowards of us all." 

This condescension was especially noticeable towards the band which 
hitherto had come in for the most severe grilling. No effort will be made here 
to deny the fact that the discipline in the band lacked much of the snap which 
was the pride and boast of the Company proper, but it is equally true, however, 
that the band, itself, was not entirely responsible for its condition. From the 

31 



32 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

very first the band had to fight hard for its every day existence. It was never 
popular with the majority of the Company Officers, some of whom lived espec- 
ially by the code: "when in a grouch go out and kick the band." Every new 
officer who came to the Company was placed in charge of the band with which 
he experimented. It was a kind of dumping ground. I have known the band 
to have as many as five different commanding officers in a week of seven days. 
This constant changing with the variations which each individual officer inaugu- 
rated could not help but reflect badly upon the morale and discipline of that 
body. Under the very competent leadership of Band Leader Dorcy Rhodes, 
a most excellent gentleman and soldier, a Regular Army man and a veteran of 
the Mexican Campaign, granted only normal conditions, the band of the 351st 
Field Artillery need not have been content with only second place among the 
American Expeditionary Forces Bands. 

But from the very first a senseless and unequivocal feud sprang up between 
the National Army officers and Mr. Rhodes, born, it is believed, chiefly of the 
longevity of service of the latter and of his enviable record as a soldier and a 
musician. Mr. Rhodes took orders directly from the Colonel but in matters of 
discipline for the band, Company officers were the high tribunal. Consequently 
a void was registered between the legislative and judiciary elements involved. 
Not only did this tribunal fail to stand back of the band master in his efforts 
to discipline the band, but before the very men whom he accused his authority 
was questioned, and a passive moral support afforded the men under him, thus 
neutralizing his power over them and lessening the potency of his efforts as a 
collective band. So in the efforts of some of the officers to "teach him his place" 
they tied the only hand that might have led the 351st Field Artillery band out 
of the dust of the one better band in France. That the band, in spite of the 
constant knocks given it, ever remained the apple of the eye in the sight of both 
Colonels, each one of which possessed power enough to speak it into dissolution, 
tends to place the blame for its lack of official (Companial) popularity where it 
belongs. Colonels are not prone to tolerate institutions which fall short of the 
mark. But in spite of all this handicap, under the guidance of Mr. Rhodes; 
Sergeants Horace B. Wallace and Leon J. Carter; Corporal Peter Philliphs; 
Musicians Nelson R. Jordan; Jesse Davis and Assistant Band Leader Berry A. 
Claytor and many others the band was finally steered to the point where its 
loyalty was unquestioned. The upheaval mentioned before placed them solidly 
on a footing with the best of the Company's men. Again, all of this upheaval 
was entirely unnecessary, for although it is not always a virtue in Eph to forget 
too readily his just cause for grievance, he does, and so now, the little unpleas- 
antries of training were swallowed up in the mad enthusiasm for the firing line, 
and the only effect it had upon him was to set him wondering if persons so con- 
stituted possessed the guts for the battle charge. Too, there were other officers 
by whose fidelity the troops swore. Conspicuously were Captains George C 
Mather; Bell; Charles H. Shons,* and Edward F. Bowman; 1st Lieutenants 
George DeF. Lord; Carlton H. Palmer; Arthur E. Green; Leverett Hooper; 
2nd Lieutenants Charles S. Young; Harold G. Telford; Leonard L. Lyons and 
others. 

* Captain Charles H. Shons was probably the best beloved officer of Headquarters Com- 
pany while that unit was in France. A strict disciplinarian he was nevertheless a very human 
gentleman. Many little personal kindnesses, oft times in a camouflaged way, were finally traced 
to his hands. At Brest when the Company was about to embark for home an order was received 
that any soldier not physically fit to make the long hike to the dock would be immediately trans- 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 33 

Everything was now ship-shape. The Regiment moved out towards the 
front, but even before the Regiment reached the firing line we caught a glimpse 
of the high pinnacle to which "Old Eph" was carrjang the gilded banner of bravery 
and heroism. One of the innumerable stops for coffee was made outside of the 

walls of the Base Hospital at . Here we saw our first wounded colored 

soldiers. Those who could, climbed upon the walls from one side while we 
clambered up from the other. They were cheerful and full of hope and most 
of them were eager to be well and return to the fray. 'It is the only place," 
they said 'you will like it after the first few days." One great big strapping 
colored soldier sat just opposite my position on the wall. Both of his feet were 
bundled up; his head and face were almost entirely swathed in bandages and his 
right arm was in a sling. I gazed down upon him with a feeling of pity choking 
up inside of me. "'They hit you pretty hard, laddie-boy, didn't they?" I asked. 
"Hell, no!" he roared. "You ought to see the other fellow." 

"Did you get him?" I queried. "Get him?" he laughed. "He was the last 
of the mob, I think," he said. 'I had got rid of thirty rounds of ammunition. 
My automatic was burnt up — gas clogs an automatic, you know. At the third 
advance a fat Hun fell in love with my bayonet and I let him have it. I went 
down then with shrapnel in both feet; I had already got this slash across the face. 
A wounded Boche must have seen me move for he crept over and on his knees 
drove his bayonet through the flesh of my right shoulder. It stuck in the ground 
and I managed to pull him down and give him my trench knife through the fifth 
and six." When the whistle blew I started to clamber down he called up to me: 
"Go up, boy, and give them hell — some of you may come back here, but send 
the Boche on his way!" God, how we promised to avenge them; and God, 
how we did! 

All that day I watched the faces of the men about me to see how the sight 
of suff"ering and pain had affected the temperament of the troops, but not once 
did I see a trace of fear but only hope that they might live to keep the promises 
so valiantly given. Later on in that same day I saw four men dig out their 
rifles and begin studiously to oil the mechanism and to polish up that fourteen, 
inches of cold steel on the rifle's tip. 



ferred to the Base Hospital and left pending his improvement. Sergeant Denny Bibb (Harris- 
burg, Pa.) whose ability as a telephone man and supply sergeant had recommended him to the 
Captain was suffering badly from asthma, developed to the best of our knowledge since his en- 
trance into the army, and could not have made the hike with his pack. Captain Shons took this 
pack, buckled it on his own back and carried it every inch of the way. 



CHAPTER SIX 



FROUARD— AN AIR RAID 

At the close of a wet, sultry day we steamed into Frouard. As usual it 
was raining — great sheets of water fairly tumbled from the dull grey heavens. 
The Regiment detrained. It was farewell to box cars until after the firing line. 
All were immensely glad of that. Anything was better than those box cars we 
thought, but we didn't know. Such billets as were to be had were unhabitable. 
A fresh body of troops had just moved out, and the straw and grass they had 
used was left for us. Honestly that stuff moved when one looked at it; it fairly 
vomited vermin. When mess was served — the first hot mess for days — the boys 
sat on the curb or flat in the streets and ate, all the while the dirty water from 
their dirty helmets streamed into their dirtier mess, but it was hot, and what's 
the difference when one is beastly hungry? One lad was a little more fortunate 
than some of the others. A peasant, his son and daughter passed, and seeing 
him on the curb invited him to enter and place his pan upon the table. Too 
glad of the chance to cheat such a night of some of its prey the soldier followed 
the trio into the hut. Hardly had the peasant produced his black bread and 
vin rouge (red wine) ere the siren screamed the arrival of a Boche plane. In- 
stantly the town went black; the peasant's candle was snuffed in a jiffy, but was 
relighted when the windows and doors had been barricaded against any possible 
exposure of light. From every angle the French anti-air craft guns barked and 
every now and then the slow, deep rumble of exploding shrapnel told that the 
Boche was fighting back. Nearer and nearer came the Boche and louder and 
more persistently roared the land guns. Shrapnel was now exploding in the 
streets. Evidently the Boche sought to descend low enough to drop a spj', it 
being too dark for a picture. On the other hand the French determined not to 
let him come near enough to earth to do either, and to and fro across the Heavens 
they blazed away at him. He circled; he dipped; he went off on the wing and 
rode his own tail but it did him no good; the French shells were ever bursting 
just beneath his wings; their search-lights blinding him when he wheeled and 
sought to swoop earthward. 

Meanwhile the soldier and the peasant family sat like stones in their seats. 
The father and son were frightened. Thej' admitted it and shortly went below 
to one of the bomb-proof cellars which necessity has added to most of the French 
homes wherever war has passed. It was the daughter who urged them to go to 
safety, excusing the one because of his age, the other because of his youth. 

But she, herself, sat without a tremor, her face pale, her blue eyes flashing 
falcon-like in the dim candle light. Had death come then it would have found 
her like unto as it left her great grand sires — each dead in his marble senate 
chair when this same Hun had passed on his way. Nearer and nearer came the 
bomb-bomb of the plane and faster and still faster spoke the land guns. Death 
danced a ghostlj^ step on the thatched roof and the little town rocked like a cockle 
shell in a storm with every explosion of the high powered projectiles. Presently 
she arose and stood underneath a steel arch leading into the adjoining room. 
Had the house shattered as it might have done did one of these missies find its 
mark this arch might have stood or broken the fall of the immediate over-head 

34 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 35 

structure. Pale as a lily she stood there clinching her hands until the blood 
showed, and stamping her tiny feet, exclaiming: "Boche! Boche! Par bon — 
ugh!" (Boche! Boche! No good — ugh!) The soldier still sat by the table. 
All that he needed to be really afraid was to admit it to himself, but somehow 
this he would not do before this slip of a girl, but one year more than half his 
own age, yet standing like a martyr before the stroke. So he sat there striving 
to keep a firm grip on his feelings his hands clutched on the table, his ears following 
the battle far above in the dull clouds. But the strain was awful. To sit there 
and be fought at without the chance of fighting back made an experience equalled 
by but one — that of the luckless doughboy who alone in some front trench listens 
all night to the agonizing cry of his companion dying by inches in dark No Man's 
Land. With a nod the girl invited him to a place beside her own but he refused 
and when he could stand it no longer he leaped towards the door, and flung it 
open, his hand grabbing at his Colt. Only God knows what he hoped to accom- 
plish with such a weapon against a Boche plane shooting from its vantage point 
in the sky. Hardly had he opened the door before the voice of the guard barked 
at him from the dark: "Close that door, you damn fool!" and bang! went his 
rifle. A bullet smacked hard into the casement above the soldier's head. He 
slammed too the door and leaped away back into the room now in darkness; a 
gust of wind having gutted the candle light. He might have fired back but he 
didn't; he didn't even disagree with the guard's opinion of him. And right 
willingly he went and stood meekly beside the girl in the arch. Could all America 
have felt the strain of those next few moments she were better equipped to 
appreciate London's agony when hopelessly she watched the Zeppelins reduce 
her school houses and her children to a mass of twisted iron and charred and 
bleached bones. After an eternity the sirens screamed: "All's clear!" And 
there in high heavens we saw the Boche plane come tumbling like a huge barn 
afire straight down to earth. The pilot, it is said, dropped inside our own lines; 
the plane, itself, swept on and perished among those who sent it forth. 

On this occasion "Old Eph" amused the French soldiers quartered here by 
refusing to take cover. The French, wise in this method of warfare, made haste 
to take cover, throwing themselves down beside the walls and crowding into 
the cellars, but Eph stood in groups about the dark streets, watching the battle 
and plucking the shrapnel where it crashed into the walls. His curiosity brought 
upon him the just reprimand of the Colonel for only the darkness rendered his 
indiscretion even passive. Yet once again "Ben Hickory" preached a gospel 
he did not practice, for none were more curious than he. On the next night 
when he started forth for the firing line in a great observation car, he was hailed 
just outside of the danger zone by a guard and told that he could not pass. The 
Colonel flashed his eagles but they meant nothing to this dusky sentry who had 
been told to let no one pass that way. But the sentry did tell him of a detour 
which he might make and which might lead him to the desired place provided 
the Colonel was willing to run the gauntlet of the enemy planes. 

Well, "'Ben Hickory" had a way of his own, and no one has ever been able to 
accuse him of overlooking bets, so he waved his chaff^eur (Mechanic John Brown 
of Baltimore, Md.), forward. They succeeded in maneuvering a ravine, and 
clearing a wood, emerged into a little opening, but so did Fritz with a G. L* 
can of red-hot shrapnel. The Colonel and his chafFeur walked back that njgbt 
and on the way back the Colonel fired his chaff'eur! 

*"G. I. Can" Arillery slang for German 210 shehs. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FIRING LINE 

Contrary to the widely advertised and generally accepted theory that the 
Colored soldiers reached the firing line only in time for the shouting the majority 
of Colored fighters were thrown into the struggle when it had assumed its fiercest 
countenance. It was no longer a vieing of men but a hateful picture of the 
struggle of demons. Men came to the firing line, but devils, themselves, fought. 
The great game was stripped of the last shred of romance and adventure and 
even chivalry had ceased to exist. The scabbard was thrown awaj'; only the 
sword remained. Probably Allied officialdom never put the seal of approval 
on ruthless warfare, but certainly among the enlisted personnel an unwritten 
code excluded all but war to the knife. The Boche, himself, set the pace by 
punctuating his cry of "Kamerad!" with the bark of his dum-dum pistol, and 
Eph learned to come back with "Kamerad, hell!" and to drive home the bayonet 
with a vengeance. The great heights to which the acceptance of this no-prisoner 
policy reached is well illustrated in the story told to the author by Sergeant 
Creighton M. Porter (371st M. G. C.) of an American ambulance driver. All 
the earth knows the generosity and magnanimity' of those big hearted men, yet 
the story goes: The driver was hurrying back with a badly wounded German 
when the latter suddenly raised up and said: "You Americans think you're 
going to win this war, but you ain't." Whereupon the driver replied: "Yes, 
and you think you are going to a hospital, too, but you ain't." And with that 
he dumped the badly wounded soldier upon the ground and dashed off. Three 
thousand miles away the civil mind may well ask what more do Barbarians, 
but there in the stench of battle smoke where sentiment has given away to cold 
steel and human compassions are frozen into bullets or melted into red-hot shrap- 
nel one does not register many surprises save at the varied forms of human 
demise. Men's veins no longer ran blood; they pulsated fire and liquid hell. 
Such is the condition of things when "Old Eph" stepped down into the valley 
of the shadow with a smile upon his lips — the same smile I saw upon his face 
when the grim reaper had said to the tired heart "Be still!" 

Aside from the general hardships which are the natural antipathies through 
which every moving, fighting army must pass to be successful the unparalled 
conditions under which the last war was prosecuted permitted a wide scope for 
the experimental, netting oftimes a vast amount of unfortunate and some times 
tragetic results. To say that three, four or five divisions have gone forward to 
this or that sector means very little to the civil mind, but to the military (even 
to that little bit of which the author may be possessed) a multitude of detail 
work springs into existence, transportation must be provided; traffic regulated 
to the nicety of a second; food apportioned; accoutrements and clothing inspected 
and reissued; rear and van guards and flanks flung out and tens of thousands of 
little things each though negligible in itself but assuming as gigantic proportions 
in their absence as the proverbial nail for want of which a shoe, horse, rider and 
kingdom were lost, and each little hardship and inconvenience stabbing more 
or less maliciously at the stamina of the troops. Volumes might be written of 
the mud, filth, slush, rats, vermin, food, or rather of the lack of food, but a scant 
one or two will amply suffice. 

[36 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 37 

Enroute to the firing line we were particularly fortunate in having our own 
rolling kitchen along and in being able to accommodate the movements of the 
troops with the clumsier efforts of the kitchen when we moved across country. 
But at St. Jenevevie the only available place for the establishing of this luxury 
was the basement of what was left of an old shell torn homestead. Even during 
the day the kitchen was only partially visible and at night the absence of candles 
often left it in pitchy darkness save for the occasional fitful gleam of a candle 
here and there which the troopers brought from their billets. All the flies — 
little and big and medium of the entire sector, seemed to celebrate the arrival 
of food and took up their abode in our kitchen; their drone beneath the ground 
vieing with the rumble of the heavy guns above. The cooking was done in open 
pots and every good housewife knows the efi"ect of heat and steam upon drowsy, 
half-starved flies. Yet there in the dark what a mess line we had, and what a 
cry for "seconds" prevailed! No matter what we thought, one must eat lest the 
feet lag on the charge or the arms lack the punch of the hardier bayonet work, 
and too, there are worse things than horse stew seasoned with flies and nice 
little roach bugs! Our cook — Private William H. Boardley — once made some 
prune pie. Can you imagine it — prune pie made and eaten in the pitch dark 
from open pans with millions of flies buzzing about and clamoring noisily for 
every morsel you take! Well, there were some prunes in it; I saw the seed of 
one! Yet not one scrap of that *'prune-fly-pie" was left! 

Of all the fighting troops it was my privilege to observe in France I think 
"Old Eph" ranks first in the preservation of his dignity in the presence of those 
scavengers of the trench — rats. Make no mistake about it by imagining refer- 
ence being made to such rats as the faithful tabby chases to his lair over here, 
but rather grant your conception stretched to the appreciation of an animal 
easily mistaken for tabby herself. At night, especiafly, when one entered his 
biflets one was greeted with what sounded desperately like the pattering of human 
feet on the rough boards. Probably the soldier would draw his 'gat," creep to 
the door and fling it open fully expecting to find some enemy spy, and yelling in 
the dark: "Who's there?" But his answer lay in an ominous ring of beady, 
glassy eyes staring at him from the remote corners of the room. Should he lie 
down to sleep these precious little animals scurry over and over his body, smell 
for his breathing, romp over his face and gnaw assiduously at the toes bursting 
from over worked hobnails. To strike at then is only to presume upon their 
self delegated perogative and they resent it by squaring off^, rearing on their 
hind legs and snapping their beaddy eyes as though to say: "Aren't you dead 
yet; if not, why not? I'm hungry." It was a joke to "Old Eph" and to some 
others but I have knowledge of an officer who went into hysterics because of the 
persistency of these creatures. This officer was a most splendid and gallant 
soldier, yet at the mere mention of a rat the very flesh on his frame would creep 
and twitch. He would cover his face and empty his automatic in the direction 
of the retreating rodent. 

And of course there is the itchy memory of those wonderful little fel- 
lows who "sticketh closer than a brother." They, at least, were no respector of 
persons or sex, for after a tired Red Cross nurse was seen to rumple her chestnut 
hair over an Army map the rivers took on new life and surely the hills did seem 
to move. 

But to get back to the weightier thought that the present war gave large 
scope for the experimental. This is more or less true of every army, and its 



38 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

success — the Army's success — depends considerably on the ability of its Com- 
manders to reduce the necessity for experiments. It may not be beyond the plane 
of truth to say that the Allied Army quit the experimental stage only during the 
last months of the War. Not only is a large percentage of error in every Army 
directly traceable to the experimental but the varied application of the human 
element in the whole scheme not infrequently results in a forced miscarriage of 
the best laid plans, thus accounting for an equally large proportion of mishaps. 
The ability of the common soldier to recognize and allow for the latter margin 
of error is probably the best test of his loyalty and discipline. One of the most 
common causes of complaint among the doughboys prior to the arrival of the 
167th Field Artillery Brigade (composed of the 351st, 350th and 349th) was a 
lack of strict coordination between Infantry and Artillery operations. This 
particular kind of error is said to have figured conspicuously in the annals of the 
368th that dark day in the Argonne. Most of the boys with whom I have talked 
seemed more prone to believe that "some one blundered" than that 'twere a 
malicious attempt at human slaughter. Probably the blame for the whole 
mess will never be correctly fixed, but, certainly the relieving of the responsible 

ofTicer, Major tends to lend color to the contentions of the enlisted 

men, and to shatter the black brush with which some are wont to smatter the 
achievements of that organization. Shortly the arms of this same Regiment 
plucked as beautiful a rose for the chaplet of America as ever adorned Miss 
Liberty's brow. But, be that as it will, or may, it is known that through it all 
"Old Eph" maintained an eye single to Duty and kept an ear ever peeled for 
Humanity's slightest call. And it was with a good deal of pride and relief that 
the Infantry in the Marbache sector welcomed the coming of the 167th Field 
Artillery Brigade and staked their all on its reputation. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 



FIGHTING CALIBER— BATTLE ZONE— RUNNERS, TELEPHONE 
MEN— THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW— A SHOOTING MATCH 

So we came to the firing line. Some difficulty was experienced here in 
keeping "Old Eph" from singing and yelling and firing "at will." The pack is 
less heavy; the trench less muddy and vermin-fined when one can sing, but orders 
were orders and Eph contented himself with this refrain, accompanied to the 
roar of his cannon: "Now Mr. Kaiser count your men!" (I do not know that 
this expression was original with the 351st. I do know that the lads of that 
Regiment made it the burden of their song.) 

Our bit of Marbache sector was spread fan-fike just beneath the wails of 
Metz but slightly to the north and west with the 351st meshed in the vortex 
and the enemy sweeping a tri-cornered front with the best manned forts and 
emplacements after Gibraltar. The French were on our extreme right; the 349th 
immediately under us; the 350th holding the left flank with the 58th, while a 
battery of Coast Artillery shot nine-point-twos from the rear. Our position 
was cramped, and aside from not permitting the freedom of movement which 
was desired, it forced the greater portion of our guns to take up positions off to 
the left and out of direct line with the major enemy positions which were hard 
off to the right. This meant that more than two-thirds of our guns had to 
shoot almost entirely across our sector to figure creditably in our barrages and 
bombardments. Every inch of communication — telephone, buzzer, radio, 
runners — between Batteries, Battalions, Brigades, Regimental and Company 
Headquarters and the echelon was installed, operated and maintained by the 
enlisted men. Repairs often meant work in exposed positions, yet no one grum- 
bled. Sergeant Harrison Chester (Baltimore, Md.), once worked so for four 
consecutive days and nights along with Lieutenant Leonard L. Lyons and was 
mentioned in the letter to General Headquarters in re the Lieutenant's being 
struck by shrapnel. It was of Private Leofian Dockins, another telephone 
man, of whom Lieutenant Harold H. Nute said: "Damn, but that fellow has 
guts; gee, I would go with him any where — to hell!" This is more than praise; 
it is worship when one understands that Lieutenant Nute was not popular, for 
the very good reason that he did not aspire to be. The average "shave tail" is 
naturally unpopular; Lieutenant Nute studiously acquired his. Life presents 
some strange paradoxes but none more queer than the spectacle of two men in 
one and the same Regiment, one the exponent of a theory of which he is not 
openly a disciple; the other a disciple of a theory of which he is not openly an 
exponent. 

The work of the runners at the front cannot long escape the attention of 
the practiced eye of the Historian. It may, however, never enter into the annals 
of the world's greatest war, but certainly its neglect will forever burden the 
conscience of civilized Humanity. Night after night when the order "Runner!" 
was bawled from the ofiice the entire force would spring forward, jostfing each 
other for the honor of going forth in the darkest, death-ridden night to measure 
the span of their lives with the hell without. Perchance the positions had been 

[39] 



40 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

shifted and the soldiers not well informed as to where ended their lines or where 
began that of the enemy, yet there is no record of messages going astray, or of 
the wrong coordinates being transmitted to gun squads or of a miscalculated 
charge slaying friendly troops. 

Or, what mattered it to the dusky doughboy that the morrow would find 
him hot-footing it across shell swept No Man's Land, tonight he is merry, fur- 
bishing his weapons, and gambling as to the fresh notches the morrow will add 
to his rifle butt. Nor can it be said that time and distance had dimmed his 
memory of existing conditions at home, against which he now fought in a foreign 
land and for a people with the least possible claim upon his generosity. For had 
the three thousand miles which intervened between him and his native country 
possessed the potency to so benumb him, Fritz was prepared in a novel way to 
keep him informed even as he did the Russians and the Irish. From his high perch 
in the sky he shot a propaganda more deadly than bullets steel-jacketed or 
poisoned, asking "Old Eph" why he fought; reminding him of the lynchings; 
disfranchisements; jim-crowisms and segrcgrations which were ever his bitter 
portion in the land of his nativity. It was not always easy to pull the trigger 
steadily or drive home the bayonet with a clear conscience when visions of swing- 
ing sisters, roasting brothers and horse-whipped mothers and fathers swam in 
the mind. But Eph had put his hand to America's plow. Eph would not look 
back now, but mark you, America, God and Eph will not forget! Will you? 

I have seen our boys go down to No Man's Land with a smile, yet knowing 
full well what the end thereof might be. One might see them any evening, 
filing along in single file close to the edge of the camouflaged road moving up so 
as to be in line to go over in the earlj' morning. They were solemn, thoughtful, 
but they were unafraid. The eye was calm, clear, steady; the voice untouched 
by a single tremor of panic, the step firm and true. I have heard them jest on 
the last lap of the journey, and call as they passed to the fellows serving the guns: 
'"Give 'em hell, buddy; tomorrow I'll tell you where you hit." I have seen 
other men go down to the valley with slow, faltering tread, their eyes upon the 
ground; hands hot and sweaty, the cheeks palhd. I remember one Company 
of our own Infantry that had been brought up under heavy fire during the night 
to remain in the immediate vicinity in order to take the places of the boys already 
in the fore and soon to go back. All night they had marched under fire and rain. 
There was no food and little rest. They were told that when they came to the 
front line they might rest until the other troops moved out — probably not before 
evening of the next day. They reached the front, foot-sore and hungry, slightly 
oefore day break to find that the patrol which had just gone over had been 
counter attacked and was being cut to pieces. There was not a moment to 
spare. "Go forward!" was the order to be followed immediately by: "As you 
were! Cut out that damned yelling! Forward!" "Old Eph" had broken into 
a yell of triumph. The lust of battle was deep in his soul and forward like a 
blood hound unleashed he went. They tried to "carry on" with their light 
packs but even these were too much for their spent strength and with their 
trench knives they cut themselves loose and went forward, knocked out the 
machine gun nests, broke up the enemy formations and crammed them like rats 
back into their own trenches. One entire machine gun nest yelled "Kamerad!" 
from their dugout and filed out with their hands high above their heads. The 
boys frisked their weapons, left a guard to conduct them to the rear, and forged 
on. Hardly had they turned their backs before the captured Germans caved in 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 41 

the skulls of their captors with short clubs which they carried up their sleeves, 
and then sought to turn the guns again upon the remainder of the patrol, but at- 
tracted by shots in their rear the patrol wheeled and bore down like an avalanche. 
Then, God how they fought. Again the Germans took to their dugouts; again 
they veiled '"Kamerad!" but ''Old Eph" had learned his lesson. "Kamerad, 
hell!" he screamed. "Take this — and this — and this!" he bellowed as he showered 
into the dugout the hand-grenades, and then again the Germans came out, but, 
me thinks, Gabriel will need a fisherman's net rather than a trumpet to carry 
them to their Judge for they left not enough of them alive to put on a muster roll. 
Nothing could stop Eph now. They swept the field and went forward to Bois 
Frehaut and that n'ght slept upon their arms. 

Later when our men went into the one-time No Man's Land to bury the 
dead strange sights met their gaze. The battle field was indescribable. Scat- 
tering, the search for the dead began, and it became a slang almost when a 
searcher would sing out from some remote part of the field: "Here's one" 
(meaning a colored soldier was found dead there), the other searchers would 
yell back: "How manj' Germans?" for whereever a colored soldier had Iain 
down for his last long sleep he generally made his couch upon the stilled forms 
of his foes. 

Hard off at right angles to what had been the old German front line trench 
was a little shell riddled hillock, and there cuddled up in a pile much as a hen 
would have gathered her chicks were nine white soldiers, long dead and stinking. 
It was the end of what must have been an awful tragedy. Evidently they were 
a portion of a raiding party and had either become separated from the command 
or had blundered upon a Boche machine gun nest. Standing there under the 
pale stars it did not require much imagination to conjure up the picture of what 
must have happened. One could almost see them look vainly towards their own 
trenches from which no succor came, or came too late, and then fling themselves 
down together in the hope of shelter — incidtntly the very worst thing they 
could have done. And lying there, probably with a milk white star-shell to 
make them unmistakable targets, the enemy machine guns had fanned them with 
its hot breath of death until the last nerve had ceased to quiver and the last 
heart ceased to be afraid. Of the nine three men had not fired a single shot, 
and only one man of the remaining six had emptied his rifle; their bayonets 
showed no blood. 

Our Infantry seemed to have swung off sharply to the right and led almost 
into the French quarter. In an aid abandoned trench three French soldiers 
were taking pot-shots at a German sniper thought to have taken refuge in a 
gully slightly behind a little knoll. One of the Colored soldiers — a boy from the 
366th — was eager to take a hand. The French tried to dissuade him but could 
not and for more than a half hour these two pitted themselves against each other. 
It was necessary to get this fellow or else the French trapped there must go 
entirely through our sector to reach the left wing of their own whither the tide 
of battle had turned. "Old Eph" drew his bead carefully and pulled but always 
the German came back with a bullet which kicked up the earth above our heads. 
"Old Eph" chuckled to himself: 'I'm going to get that Dutch son-of-a gun," 
he said and crammed his magazine full once more. Then before anyone could 
guess his intentions he sprang upon the lip of the trench. It would seem, how- 
ever, that the German had also said to himself: I'm going to get that American 



42 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

son-of-a-gun," for he, too, stood, legs apart, upon the parapet, his figure silhoutted 
against the star-lit sky (as Eph's must have been to him). Both men began 
shooting about the same time and shot about as fast as God would let them. 
Suddenly Eph lurched forward to his knees and toppled back among us, a bullet 
seared in the flesh of his thigh. But the German was seen to fling out his arms, 
leap high in the air, crash down and roll heavily down the little knoll towards 
us; his rifle sliding a part of the way after him. 

For him the toil of life was all over. And who shall say upon whose head 
the blood flowing from his side shall be? 

Back at Frouard when exploding shrapnel threatened to put a period to 
the existence of the little town it had been but natural to suppose that Eph's 
actions were born of inexperience in aerial warfare, but in these after days the 
constant repetition of such dare-deviltry as just mentioned; the constant courting 
and flirting with death were ever and whenever found abolished in the minds of 
all who saw or heard all doubt as to the indubitable fact that deep down in the 
heart-core of the Colored Fighter his sense of humor was lorded over by a greater 
sense of loyalty and bravery which rose to every challenge when the Gods of 
Chance rattled the death-head dice and called him to the play, and likened him 
unto Arthur's knights who pitched their tents in the forks of the road and met 
all comers for the sake of king and country. The French fairly smothered the 
soldier with kisses, but that is one of the things I despair of Eph's ever learning 
to love — being kissed by men, and although he could not keep them from kissing 
him he spent the next few moments trying to wash his face — incidently a thing 
he had not done for these many days. Here we talked with the first prisoners 
in whose capture our Artillery had been instrumental. They were a motely 
group, but there is no doubt that they were good soldiers — better collectively 
than individually; better with the machine gun than with the bayonet; better 
with a battery of cannon than with a regiment of infantry. Almost all, I think, 
fully expected to be killed. I picked out one German who looked agreeable 
and tried out my German on him. He would not 'compre." "Hell, talk 
United States," he growled. ''Got a cigarette?" I gave him one. "Well, 
what do you think of the Colored fighter?" I asked. He spat viciously. "I 
didn't have to come to Germany to know how you people fight," he said. "I 
used to live on 40th Street between 9th and 10th avenues. My regiment has been 
in the fight for nearly three years; this is the first time we didn't clean the field. 
I was in your army once, went into Mexico with your General." 

"What are you going to do after the war?" "Go back to 40th Street", I 
laughed. "Why, man, you can't do that," I told him. "There will be an 
embargo and boycott on all things German." He grinned knowingly. ' Yep, for 
a few years, probably, then your Congress will lift the ban, pronto. That's 
how you Americans do things." And I wondered if the fellow was not pretty 
near to the truth. We talked for thirty odd minutes. He knew more of America's 
movements than I did — knew of nearly every strike, bombing and disease that 
had startled the country. Time has proven some of his predictions and asser- 
tions to be absolutely correct; some partially so, and others grossly wrong in 
their entirety. As of the latter he was very curious to know if we kncA' that 
Bernstofl"'s army of a half million had seized the Hudson fortifications; forced 
the capitulation of Washington (D. C), and driven Mr. Wilson into exile in 
Europe. We heard that Mr. Wilson was in France. It was hard not to believe 
anything he said; he was that well informed. He knew that an armistice was 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 43 

eminent — knew some of the purported terms and strove to reflect the impression 
that Imperial Germany would agree to the restoration of certain war bounties. 
But he knew that had Germany been granted the first armistice and had been al- 
lowed to fall back to a certain position tentatively to talk peace, "all hell could 
not have got her out of her second lines." Nothing that was said seemed to 
affect his cocksuredness that no matter how the dice fell Germany was bound to 
win. Even when a Colored private ordered him to "about face, forward, march," 
his attitude was one of insufferable arrogance and sarcastic indulgence. 

This little essay over the battle field afforded an excellent opportunity for 
the securing of souvenirs, all kinds and classes of which were scattered helter- 
skelter in every direction taken by the flying foe, and to "Old Eph's" enthusiasm 
a new force was given which swept him to the nth power of fighting fervor. 



CHAPTER NINE 



THE COLORED OFFICER 

The work of the Colored Officer in France has come in for a great bit of 
commendation and more criticism, but just how far current History is to be 
depended upon to correctly reflect the true value of his services is very hard at 
present to determine, since so few of the works on the naatter are from the pens 
of those best qualified by actual contact and experience to do exact justice. 
Indeed, it is almost strange that more of our Colored Officers have not risen up 
in defense of their laurels in France. And the only sane solution to their silence 
is their unanimity in agreeing that any attempt at argument might be made to 
appear as lending a shred of respectability to the slanderous declamations of the 
critics, and that their deeds stand indicative of the morale, temperament and 
amenability to discipline of the troops they commanded. Grave issue, however, 
may be taken with their modesty in as much as it is not only their integrity as 
officers which is being attacked but the capability of the Race to produce Mili- 
tary Leaders as well as followers is threatened with impeachment. 

Of course much of the criticism against them springs from prejudice. This 
brings one to the question as to just how much prejudice there was in France in 
the American Army and how did it exert itself. Some of the modes of its expres- 
sion (where enlisted men were concerned) have already been touched upon, 
and for a long while it was believed that its outlet through the social activities 
of the troops constituted its only off^ense. That it was used to discredit and de- 
moralize the Colored troops from the Military standpoint was not generally 
believed or accepted until after the Armistice and the imprint of its cloven hoof 
unmistakably shown leading down into the very shadow of No Man's Land, 
itself. In fact, in some instances, it was not believed that a wholesale policy, 
officially sanctioned, to discredit, discriminate and jim-crow was in vogue in 
France until after the return of the Colored troops and the doffing of uniforms 
released the naked truths. 

I want always to think well of my Government — indeed I want that no one 
shall think better, and in this I am sure that Istandwithamajority of My Race 
who are willing to believe that the issuance of segregation orders and orders 
tending the dissuasion of fraternalization of French officers with Colored had 
their origin less in the seat of Government itself, than in the mendacious strength 
of a prejudical few to so paint the Negroes' popularity in France that certain 
officials believed such orders necessary to the maintance of Anglo-Saxon pre- 
dominance — social and Military — at home and abroad. (This, however, in no 
wise constitutes an apology for the short-sighted policy which scorned investi- 
gation and the information, as to the behavior of Colored troops, which the 
French authorities right willingly would have supplied). To illustrate: about 
the time of the signing of the Armistice a goodly number of Colored officers 
arrived in France. Now the Government need not have gone to the trouble, 
expense and danger of sending these men to France had it not been that they 
could be of invaluable aid. A thousand excuses might have been invented to 
retain them in America. But they were not. Yet from the day of their arrival 
in France they were a white elephant on the hands of certain officers who strove 

[44] 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 45 

to keep them from sharing in the honor of the conflict and from the rightful 
place for which America at Destiny's behest had prepared them. From pillow 
to post they were shuttled; now in this town; now in that; a student of this school 
today; a student of that tomorrow and finally a forced loafing when the Allied 
cause and the cause of Humanity begged the services of every available man. 
Twelve of these men — Lieutenants— were sent to our own Regiment (and their 
own Regiment since they were men who had risen from the ranks of the 351st 
Field Artillery. Three of these men: Lieutenants James S. Davis; James A. 
Norris and John C. Robinson having formerly been Regimental Sergeant Major; 
First Sergeant and Sergeant respectively from my own Company. 

Instead of these men being put to work as the spirit of the High A. E. F. 
order assigning them must have intended, they were studiously — and shall we 
not say maliciously relegated to a nil statue. An order was posted holding them 
in reserve at the discretion of the Commanding Officer. They were not per- 
mitted the honor of Officer of the Day; took no Reveille, Retreat or Guard 
Mount, were present at scarcely none of the Company's formations and were 
spoken of to enlisted men not as Lieutenant so and so, but merely as "Davis" 
"Norris" and Robinson." Yet they were Artillerymen, specially selected; 
specially trained and specially transported for specific duty with the 351st and 
other Artillery, but when the prejudicial ingenuity of officers higher up failed 
to inaugurate new schemes whereby these men might further squander a great 
Nation's life and time and wealth and opportunity they succeeded in being 
linked onto that portion of the Regiment which existed only on paper and which 
boasts the least likelihood of entrance into the annals of the Nation's part in the 
world's greatest war. This was not the work of the Government proper, nor 
yet of the High Command in France, but absolutely the manipulations of a single 
individual officer who arrogated to himself the function of influencing all other 
officers with his own bigotry. 

So, granted that the Government strove to be fair to the individual, as 
many instances tend to show, it is difficult to eff^ect a reconcilliation between 
these two hypothesies — that the Government is inherently fair to the individual; 
yet the Government methodicafly plots the assassination of the social, economic 
and military character of the Race to which the individual belongs. This verges 
desperately close to the impossible. No Government could be so utterly base 
and only the unvarnished truth remains — that in France the Government was 
unhesitatingly used to further private ends just as in America some of its noblest 
eff^orts were lost in feathering the nests of the profiteers. And that group of 
men who so rob the Government of the support of its citizens presents so sorry 
a spectacle as to be despicable and revolting. They are the barbarians building 
their purple palaces upon the bleak bones of Humanity's martyrs; they the 
ghouls streaming over the battle fields, feasting upon the gory dead, and prying 
open death-locked fingers to snatch the jeweled rosary or the dead's most treas- 
ured trinket. 

It is almost begging the question to attempt to prove that colored soldiers 
will follow and be amenable to the discipline of Colored officers. It was not 
my privilege to serve with an outfit so officered, and I cannot write with first 
hand information on this particular and interesting point, but I have already 
mentioned how entirely Colored enlisted men responded to the orders of their 
Non-commissioned officers, and the valorous deeds of units officered by Colored 
are prohibital of any truth in the assertion that Colored Officers are not capable 



46 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 



of leading their men to any point of efficiency reached by others. It is hard to 
imagine a more ridiculous statement than that made by some critics that Colored 
Officers cannot command Colored troops because the "Colored soldier offers 
complications and peculiarities peculiarly his own." If it be that he is peculiar 
who better than another Colored soldier is best qualified to appreciate this 
peculiarity? This is no attempt to say that Colored troops may not be well 
officered by white officers. They may well be; some times they are. And for 
a white officer to be white enough to command Colored troops he needs no greater 
knowledge of human nature; no more patience and no more faith in mankind 
than such as are necessary to successfully command his own, but in this one 
particular he needs no Achilles heel — a strict immunization to the influence 
of others not so white as himself. Needless to say that fulfillment of the most 
elementary of patriotic obligations waives individual prejudices and leaves 
room only for devotion to the common weal to which all things else are subor- 
dinate. 

To those Colored Officers living and dead who fought that Democracy 
might not perish from the earth posterity may erect no earthly monument, but 
in letters of blood they, themselves, have written it upon the great bleeding 
heart of Humanity that wherever the exigencies of mankind require the services 
of strong men and loyal; wherever Right and Justice shall sound the battle cry, 
the Colored soldiery shall not be found wanting, but waiting and courageously 
willing in the foremost ranks. 



CHAPTER TEN 



THE ARMISTICE— AFTER-WAR CONCLUSIONS— RECONSTRUCTION 

On the morning of the tenth of November Private Armour D. Strothers; 
and Private James B. Haney (both of Pittsburgh, Pa.), and Private Paul Quesada 
(of New York), snatched from the air with their wireless apparatus the Armistice 
terms, and on the morning of the eleventh the signing of the Armistice cold- 
decked the Race and the Colored soldiery in the midst of its most brilliant 
achievements, but, not however before it had repeatedly demonstrated to the 
entire satisfaction of the whole world its loyalty, bravery and readiness for any 
task which an over-ruling Destiny might ordain. 

Immediately after the Armistice the Regiment moved to the port of Brest 
by way of Ville au Val; Belleville; Pont-a-Mousson; Liverdun; Maron Couterne 
and Le Mans. Concerning this last named place, dear to every home-bound 
soldier's heart, because it is the official delouzation station I made in my diary 
this entry: "January 6, '19. Packing for Brest. Watching Lieutenant 'Bill' 
Howard examine white officers for cooties." While the Regiment wound its 
waj' through the above named towns, consuming the time intervening from the 
11th of November to the 5th of February, we received eleven different orders 
to go forward to Brest, and just as many more orders countermanding those 
first commands. Why human hearts did not break only God knows. But 
during those weary, mailless, payless, almost foodless days the Regiment kept 
up to the high standard of morale and discipline which it had so valiantly set 
for itself at Lathus. 

Mention has already been made of the relationship which existed between 
the colored soldier and the women folks of France, but if the casual reader is not 
to be misinformed, further reference is necessary. Though the gallantry of the 
colored soldiery inspired them to be most sweet, most kind, gracious and obliging, 
there was ever apparent that happy medium of sterling friendship and respect 
which obliberated that unholy atmosphere reducing the one to an unscrupulous 
libertine and the other to a voluptuous mistress. The altar of love may have 
been lighted in the hearts of some, but more generally the warm comradeship 
sprang from friendship and a love of service. By the teaching of their own pure 
hearts whose holies of holy harbored the memory of their Poilu — their hero and 
Demi-God — they knew that back home in America each dusky lad had set the 
seal of his love upon the heart of some lady of his own choice. Thus each was 
content to be loved a little after that other and in a widely different fashion. 
Perish the false idea that our own women suffer because of those others over 
there, for whether it was around the bivouac fire, in the dugout or jolting along 
in freezing box cars it was ever of "My dusky maiden," "High Brown," "Brown," 
"Pretty Pink," or "High Yellow" over which "Old Eph" raved. And nothing 
cemented his cause so well as the picture of his wife, mother, sister or sweetheart, 
or brought more readily from its honored place in the family album "My Poilu" 
/r from its faded box the cherished lock of infant hair. 

The War is finished, yet just begun. "Old Eph" winds his way again back 
to his old home town, but never again will he fit only in the inconsequential, 
menial niche which has too often been his only share. The great smith, Mars, 
has wrought for him a stouter heart, and if he has not yet learned how to live, 

47] 



48 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 



he knows past all doubting how to be unafraid in the valley of the shadow and 
how to die splendidly defending his own, and although his hands are gone out 
in the pursuit of the weapons of peace, his fingers shall not soon forget the itch 
of those other weapons with which he struck in twain the despoilers' fingers 
from the fair and unprotected, nor his soul ceased to thrill to the stern and mad 
joy of battle when Right and Justice captain his cause. Meanwhile the pen- 
dulum of the high hope of his soul pulseates from the great white dome of the 
Capitol at Washington to the historic council rooms at Versailles. But it is not 
the cap and bells of vain-glorious praise which in Justice's name "Old Eph" 
demands, but that whether it be in the open forum of the World's Public Opinion, 
or in the secret chamber where around the polished table grave faced men pro- 
pound the doctrine of a League of Nations, he be accorded the respect for his 
rights which his morale, discipline and arms have won, instead of the distorted 
burlesque which bias and sometimes malicious minds conspire to ere te. 

In some circles grave disappointment has resulted in the Race's failure to 
receive full and complete recognition before the authors of the League of Nations, 
but such fear and disappointment were justifiable, and probably were pardonable 
only, if the League were solidly placed on purely Democratic lines, and its very 
premise unquestionably true and just. To doubt the great strength of the Race 
— its cause and its capability with the care of an over-ruling God, ever champion- 
ing the cause of the down-trodden, but right — to one daj' come into its own, is 
to thwart the very best effort of the Race in its incipiency. Too, one more 
"scrap of paper" more or less, added to the waste-basketed treaties of Belgium 
and Louvain cannot red-flag Destiny from its ordained track nor can it obscure 
the iniquitious machinations of the willful few who seek to achieve with the 
pen what one other whom they put down, failed of accomplishment with the 
sword. But, be that as it will or may, this much remains to be truthfully said: 
If the History of Democracy from Israel to Jefferson and Mr. Wilson is to be 
believed (and it is) ; if this Democratic League of Nations be not founded upon 
the principles of Right and absolute and unstinted Justice to all free peoples 
under the sun, be it and its foster-child — Peace — signed or unsigned; ratified or 
vetoed, it can no more stay the hand of Providence and dodge the fate of Israel 
than does smashing the lens remove the rankling cancer gnawing at the vitals 
of the diseased; and for all those nations whose hands are uplifted to uphold 
this molten calf and who seek to draw over its form the cloak of the Master, it 
cannot at best be more than mere whitening bones (showing where the nations 
of men went away on the road to shame) along the Gethsemanic trail leading 
to a Golgotha of death and self-oblivion. 

Recent months have added to the list of charges against the Race's integrity 
what is the most momentous accusation yet mentioned, while although false in 
the litteral and integral sense, is nevertheless ephocal. Reference is made to 
the charge that the War has seriously changed the Young Negro — that he has 
come back with "his head in the air — braggadocia." Granted that the Young 
Negro is changed, exception is taken to the common version of the nature of 
this change. It is universally agreed that all things human change; that War — 
the greatest power of human passions — possesses the greatest potentialities to 
bring about this change. Races, Countries, Creeds, Ideals and all things else 
know the power of this greatest element, and the Young Negro reserves to him- 
self no peculiarity to remain unaffected. But the assertion that he has come 
back with "his head in the air — braggadocia," is a coinage of certain masses 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 49 

whose vituperations against the Race spring from the fact that in the ranks of 
returning Colored soldiers they fail to find the '61 "Sambos" who grinned like 
Cheshire cats, showed the whites of their eyes and turned a fool's somersault at 
the mere mention of watermelons and chittlings. 

This idea is not necessarily shared by those who think seriously and who 
recognize the powers of War to destroy existing conditions and to rehabilitate 
others, and the very fact that the masses have lost their fool and * trick darky" 
is synonymous to saying that wise men have found in the ranks of returning 
Negro soldiers many men after their own hearts. It is epochal in that it marks 
a long stride in the rapidly narrowing margin between the Races. The one 
looking backward beholds something of which to be proud; the other gazing 
forward looses sight of everything save the Destiny which beckons, and the cry 
of the masses is the surest thermometer of the breadth of that neutral ground. 
For does the king fear the hireling peasant? No; but what if it be found that the 
hireling is of gentle birth? — the king dangles his own lineage before the other's 
eyes that by comparison his own (the king's) may appear the brighter. What if 
the gentle born emerges into a duke? — The king ransacks his brain to find a "sop" 
to stay his rise and growing popularity. What if the duke turns out to be a 
prince? — the king sets his men-at-arms to man the fastenings of the fortress 
and sends his jesters broadcast to surreptiously decry the man. But what if 
the prince declares himself kingly born and no redress, real or perjured, can 
swear away his aspirations? — my lord, the king, makes much haste to hang on 
his neck the golden chain of recognition and welcomes him to the joys of his 
castle and the honor of a place beside his very own in the battle line. 

Even to the most sanguine mind it is too preposterous for contemplation 
that "Old Eph," now war-made into "New Eph" has come back expecting to 
find here social conditions which prevail in France, or that he dreamed for a 
moment that he would be carried shoulder high through the streets to the banquet 
hall and feted save within the limited capacity of his own people. (And they have 
done that, God bless them!) The true soldier, himself; the true citizen 
do not ask as much, but only this — a recognition of worth as both Peace and War 
have proven it, without regard to Race, Creed, Color or previous conditions of 
servitude and the cessation of pre-judicial opposition. These — the right to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which involve the right of honest toil in 
competition with other free men) — are not more than those constitutionally 
granted to all the citizenry of this Great Republic of ours. 

A grateful nation cannot lessen or besmirch its great honor by lending itself 
to the furtherance of these just ends. In the Mayor's welcome ship which 
came out to meet the 351st Field Artillery on its return to America, many have 
pretended to see the death of prejudice, but to those who accustom themselves 
to look beyond today and who know that the walls of prejudice do not crumble 
over night when the pitchers are broken and the light of day flows forth, the feet 
of Joshua's host are just mounting to the highways about the walls of Prejudical 
Jericho. Destiny will have her own even though Treaties and Leagues are 
tacked high on the walls of the assemblies of men and Governments rot in the 
gutter. But why, comes the question, if all these good things be true of France, 
why does Eph clamor to return to the United States? Why not live for aye in 
this land of equality, justice and freedom? Scores of answers might be forth- 
coming, any one of which possessed of sufficient force to satisfy the most exact, 
— home is here; the land of his fathers; his loved ones await him and Congress 



50 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

says he shall come back that the spirit of the Constitution remain inviolate. 
But none of these constitute the real purpose which brings the Young Negro 
back to America, but rather this — to free his own fair land from the Barbarian 
of Racial Prejudice which enslaves it. So, notwithstanding the honors showered 
upon him; notwithstanding the social equality which his sterling character won 
for him; and notwithstanding the innumerable invitations to stay with these 
people who loved him so well that for his sake they dared the displeasure of the 
Great American Government, he returns to the land of his birth, not, however, 
with "his head in the air — braggadocio," but rather with his head low in shame 
because of the abuse to which a prejudical oligarchy under the guise of Democ- 
racy has brought the powers of Humanity and Civilization. His is a better 
vision; a broader, bigger vision. He no longer sees prejudice as an obstacle to 
be steered around, but as a bulwark which the battering ram of righteous might 
must demolish before the millions of his people can hope for a better place in 
the sun in which to live and work. Nor is his alone this better vision, for a mighty 
host is marshaling under his banner. Throughout the entire country individuals 
who were content to regard the Race as a tolerance have been emancipated by 
the War and its constituent influences into a thorough recognition and appre- 
ciation of the great worth of the Negro as a citizen, soldier and economic and 
industrial factor. Let me tell you a story exposing this point. 

After the Armistice the Regiment proceeded to hike from Pont-a-Mousson 
to Maron, the official entraining station, but a few of us were privileged to go 
across country in trucks, which we did, reaching the station about three days 
ahead of the Regiment. Unfortunately there were no billets to be had; another 
Regiment had gobbled up every available hayloft, cowshed, and chicken house 
so we betook ourselves to some empty box cars standing in the yards below the 
town. These box cars could be made fairly comfortable if only the French did 
not see the fire we built on the floors of them and chase us out, which they did 
on the average of about nine times every night. Indeed it seemed that the 
engineers were engaged in some kind of a push-pin game with those cars. For 
hardly had we cuddled up when along they would come, yank us out, juggle 
the cars about and often bring them back to the very same spot. Meanwhile 
we would stand around on the rails with all of our earthly possessions exposed to 
a constant down pour of cold, miserable rain. On the second day food supplies 
gave out. The Regiment there had scarcely enough for itself and we got no 
more than we could steal and it was impossible to steal — much. During the last 
night a white ordnance sergeant banged on our "side door pullman" and asked 
for shelter and food. We ofl'ered him the shelter and told him to go to the devil 
for the food, which he would not do and laid down beside us and shortly all 
hands were snugly asleep. I say snugly because in our sleep old wolf Hunger 
could not snatch away our lavished table which our dreams conjured up. Funny, 
isn't it, how sound a broke and hungry man can sleep! At any rate we were 
aroused next morning by a French peasant pounding on the car. 'Maybe 
God knows what he said (excuse me) but this is what he meant. He wanted 
us to get out of that car and be darned quick about it; that he wanted 
to put wood in it. We told him to go where they don't use wood for fire; that 
we would not get out of that car at six in the morning for every Frenchman in 
Christendom after Foch himself. We might have been there until yet had he 
not let drop this one hint, to wit: That he must get some wood to Maron by 
eight o'clock. Get wood to Maron? If this wasn't Maron, then where in the 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 51 



thunder were we? Oh, we were in Maron, yes, but during the night our puIIman 
had been shifted just eleven kilometeres south of that town! (A kilometer is 
commonly judged to be three-fifths of a mile.) Well, thank God, there are 
some words that do not hold up well under long distances. There was nothing 
to it but to fall out, roll packs and hike back to Maron on a thrice empty stomach 
and get there before eight at which time the Regiment was due. We set out. 
The ordnance sergeant walking at my side and on the way we fell to discussing 
races as we had seen and known them under fire — knowing that fire brings the 
best or the worst of all things to the fore. He told me how all his life he had 
hated Colored people because he had been taught so; taught to believe them in- 
ferior in all things to other people; had laughed at the virtue of their women 
because he had seen them sell it for a mess of pottage; and had believed every 
evil thing about the Race simply because every one who had sought to correct 
his opinion had ended by throwing stones at some one else instead of taking the 
lie that was told and carrying it straight to the bank of truth and proving it, 
once for all, n. g. The War had corrected his whole life as to the Colored man, 
"but as to your women," he said "I am willing now to believe that there must 
be virtue among them, for if there were not your men could not be what they 
have proven themselves to be — loyal and true and upright. By the way that 
reminds me of the story of a pal o' mine, Charles Sumner. Charles Sumner was 
a student at a Southern College when the war broke out. He was drafted and 
his exemption claim turned down. He came to France, served under the French 
with a portion of a Colored Regiment; was gassed and furloughed to his home in 
South Carolina. When he reached home he found a huge service flag and star 
floating from the front window, and as he strolled around the grounds he found 
in a back window of a little out-house another tiny service flag and star. 'Mother,* 
he said 'whose service flag is that! And she answered haltingly: 'Charles do 
you remember Old Black Sam who used to work here on the place?' "Yes,' 
'It is his flag, Charles; he is a soldier now. Please don't think your mother senti- 
mental, boy, but I guess I felt that I wanted to do something.' Without a word 
the boy plucked down the flag and bore it around to the front of the house and 
hung it beside his own. His heels clicked sharply together; his hand came up 
to the salute. 'Mother,' he said, 'never hang the service flag of a soldier in 
Uncle Sam's Army in the rear. They belong at the front together, no matter 
whether they are black or white.' His mother's eyes filled with tears. 'Oh, 
boy,' she said, 'your mother is so glad you feel that way about it. I was afraid 
you would be angry. Your father, you know, could never countenance a nig — 
Neg — Colored soldier. And Sam was a good boy.' 'Good Old Black Sam,' 
the boy mused. 'But, mother, how did he ever get to be a soldier? He had no 
education — could not even read or write.' 'No; they turned him down in the 
draft; said he had flat feet, but Sam volunteered, my boy, to serve his Country. 
He is a soldier now and has won the French cross. His mother came over to 
wash for me last week but all we did was to weep in each other's arms for love 
of our boys over there.' The boy choked up, but presently stammered, with 
his arm about his mother. 'Oh, mother, mine, we've all been so wrong about it 
all. Why, those Colored boys have hearts just like ours — feet and bodies that 
grow hungry and cold and tired and ache even as our own, and, mother there 
are no black bullets in No Man's Land. Good Old Black Sam; good old Sam. 
God ever watch over thee, lad, and brother of mine and bring you back to us 
who love youl' " 



52 OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 

Such is typical of a class of the prejudical — a prejudice born of ignorance 
of the better qualities and achievements of the Race. And the shame is our's 
that some of the Race itself are just as ignorant. Since my return to the United 
States I have talked to three people who are not far removed from this class. 
Two of them were Y. M. C. A., men the other a lady high in the estimation of 
the Race. I quote here a sample of the conversation I held with the three. 
■'So you have been in the Army — eh?" they asked. *'Yes," I replied. "I 
served my entire enlistment period with the 351st Field Artillery." "Did you 
go overseas?" "Yes," I replied. 'But you didn't see any active service?" 
"Oh, but I did," I replied again. "But I was told, on good authority, that the 
351st never went overseas, and after that I was told by a soldier who was over 
there that the 351st did not make good at the training grounds and was con- 
verted into stevedores." 

In no case do I think that I succeeded entirelj' in making them believe but 
that I was an imposter and a gross liar, and in every case when I tried to pin 
them down as to where they got their information it was ever the same some 
one, not colored, from over there had said it at this place or that, and they had 
believed it! We might ignore the informant as unworthy of the uniform he wore, 
but more shame be unto those of our own Race who did not trouble to find out 
the truth and stifle the lie in its cradle. That anyone or ones so near to the great 
tissues of war did not know that America's first Heavy Field Artillery to be 
motorized was Colored and saw service in France seriously taxes the minds of 
some of us to beheve in the sincerity of some of our leaders. Not that anyone 
should know as a brag or taunt but as a bit of Race History in which a pardonable 
pride may be taken just as honest parents cherish the birth dates of their off- 
springs. I wonder how manj' of those who read these pages have any idea of 
the number of Colored troops in France; in camp and who and what Regiments 
saw active service and where? The individual may not care a picayune as to 
the person al exploits of the individual Colored soldier, and no one will quarrel 
with you if you care not to know that Sam Jones died in No Man's Land that 
your own brother might come back to you — that the babe on your lap might be 
spared the mangle of the iron heel, but it is not in our power to excuse if you fail 
to realize that it is highly incumbent upon you to know that which this Race of 
your's and mine has contributed to purchase a Peace for all the free peoples of 
the earth. Nothing can be more deadly than such a lie. 

That old dollar-bill-in-the-sweater-collar-lie piled up a wall of prejudice 
which blocked many a good, erstwhile American Red Cross dollar, and went a 
long waj'S towards the nullification of a great Public's moral support of that 
worthiest of institutions before some thoughtful person took the lie by the 
nape of the neck, weighed it in the scales of Practicability and branded it, once 
for all, as utterly base and malicious. Of scarcely less magnitude and destructive 
possibilities is the surreptitiously propounded fallacy purporting to discredit 
the Race's efforts to unanimously stand back of the Government in its hour of 
direst need. Wild ravings cannot help but fan the flame into greater heat, but 
if the lie is to denied the support of those ever ready to spell evil with '"c-o-I-o-r-e-d" 
it must be taken in its swaddling clothes and strangled with the very truth it 
seeks to tarnish. Stones flung at other' peoples' homes cannot build our own, 
but rather they argue the absence of girders and beams and rocks in the immortal 
monument we strive to raise for our posterity to live and to die by. 



OLD EPH IN THE ARMY 53 

It is especially difficult to appreciate the evolutions of that mind which 
husbands that most rhapsodical of all ideas that every Young Negro, whether 
he had been to France or not, is enamoured with the idiotic idea of allying him- 
self with women of other than his own Race. And, unfortunately, this theory 
is not indulged by the enemies of the Race only, but frequently among our own 
fairer sex, it is made the basis for much and divers dissention. Had the war 
done no more than show Eph how beautiful is the path which leads to the shrine 
where the ministrations of love are enhanced by the charm of his own women, 
all the hardships and travail of soldiering were over balanced as compared with 
value received. Oh, the homage he brought to her memory and the liegemen 
his recital of her virtues banded together to protect her good name! How can 
he ever forget that picture of a beautiful "brown-skin" lady cut from a March 
or February Crisis (17) in far away France and posted by Corporal Charles S. 
Taylor and Private William B. Luckett (Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts) 
above the door of the orderly room; that picture before which every Colored 
soldier who passed stood at "attention and saluted" and swore eternal felicity 
to her and destruction to the hands that dared profane! 

No, Eph, will not forget, fair ladies, o' mine, nor will he rashly take the 
bit into his own teeth, but in the hands of a great and Divine Providence which 
shapes the Destiny of all men, will he be an instrument which suffering and death 
shall not break until, because of his valor as a citizen and a soldier. Humanity 
shall give him his cloak of knighthood and usher him to a place in the purple 
halls of earth's free men. 

In the interim the giant heart of the Race will throb on; its great nerves, 
muscles and sinews will tirelessly throb and expand in the ceaseless vigil to ever 
jealously guard the rights of the Race — which rights are not different to those of 
America — until the dawn of that inevitable morrow when the last trace of racial 
prejudice — this very worst blot on the fair escutheons of American idealisms — 
shall shiver and crumble in dissolution. 



EPILOGUE. 

The tale of the Headquarters Company 351st Field Artillery is not well 
told if one omits the honorable mention due the wonderful Demobilization 
banquet given March 3, '19, at the Hostess House, Camp Meade, Md., and chap- 
eroned by the very estimable ladies of that unit. It is to be believed that this 
splendid Company had long wanted such a banquet in order that in addition to 
the most elaborate supper and spectacular and classic dancing they had to offer 
they might stage the presentation of a most wonderful solid silver — gold-lined, 
handsomely engraved loving Cup; shaving set, and cigarette case to its Company 
Clerk. The funds for these gifts were contributed by the entire enlisted person- 
nel, and a goodly number of officers under the auspices of Sergeants Emory R. 
Cole; Timothy P. Hawkins; Corporal Charles S. Taylor and Private William A. 
Turner. The presentation speech in which glowing tribute was paid to the 
efforts of the clerk in dealing with his fellow comrades was most excellently 
voiced by Regimental Mail Sergeant William C. Anderson (a volunteer from 
Philadelphia, Pa., and formerly a Y. M. C. A. man). It goes without saying 
that so long as life shall last upon this earth the recipient of these treasures and 
his posterity will ever love, ever cherish, ever honor the memory of the dear, 
dear old pals and comrades of good old Headquarters Company 351st Field 
Artillery. An heirloom, these things are, fit for the heritage of a king — priceless 
treasures which much gold and precious stones cannot take from their pedestal 
in the heart and home of the receiver. 

As the Arab partook of salt one with the other; as the American Indian 
smoked the common pipe of Peace as a token of good will and fellowship, so the 
passing of the Loving Cup cements men's hearts together in a common cause — 
one for all; all for one to the eternal glory of Race and Country. About its rim 
memory will paint every face, and its pure, fair depths reflect the souls of those 
who gave! 

ADIEU! 



